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Map of the St Lawrence/Great Lakes Watershed
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Lake Ontario
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Gulf Of Saint Lawrence / Atlantic Ocean
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Canada ( Ontario , Quebec ) <br /> United States ( Illinois , Indiana , Michigan , Minnesota , New York , Ohio , Pennsylvania , Vermont , Wisconsin )
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1,197 km (744 mi)
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250 m (820 ft)
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10,400 m³/s (367,328 ft³/s)
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1,030,000 km&2 (397,683 mi&2)
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The (In in the middle latitudes of
North America , connecting the
Great Lakes with the
Atlantic Ocean . It is the primary drainage of the
Great Lakes Basin . It is called ''Kaniatarowanenneh'' ("big waterway") in
Mohawk . It traverses the
Canadian Provinces of
Quebec and
Ontario and forms part of the provincial boundary between
Québec and
Ontario and part of the
International Boundary between Ontario, Canada and the
U.S. State of
New York .
The Saint Lawrence River originates at the outflow of
Lake Ontario between
Kingston, Ontario on the north bank,
Wolfe Island in mid-stream, and
Cape Vincent, New York on the south bank.
From there, it passes
Gananoque ,
Brockville ,
Ogdensburg ,
Massena ,
Cornwall ,
Montreal ,
Trois-Rivières , and
Quebec City before draining into the
Gulf Of Saint Lawrence , the largest
Estuary in the world. It runs 3,058 kilometres (1,900 mi) from the furthest headwater to the mouth (1,197 kilometres or 744 mi from the outflow of Lake Ontario). The furthest headwater is the
North River in the
Mesabi Range at
Hibbing Minnesota . Its drainage area, which includes the Great Lakes and hence the world's largest system of fresh water lakes, has a size of 1.03 million square kilometres (390,000 sq mi). The average discharge at the mouth is 10,400 cubic metres per second (367,000 ft³/s).
The river includes
Lake Saint-Louis south of Montreal,
Lac Saint-François at
Salaberry-de-Valleyfield and
Lac Saint-Pierre east of Montreal. It surrounds such islands as the
Thousand Islands near Kingston, the
Island Of Montreal ,
Île Jésus (
Laval ),
Île D'Orléans near Québec City, and
Anticosti Island north of the
Gaspé .
Lake Champlain and the
Ottawa ,
Richelieu , and
Saguenay rivers drain into the St. Lawrence.
The Saint Lawrence River is in a seismically active zone where
Fault reactivation is believed to occur along late
Proterozoic to early
Paleozoic normal faults related to the opening of
Iapetus Ocean . The faults in the area are
Rift related, which is called the
Saint Lawrence Rift System .
(seen at left) and
Lévis (seen at right). The
Île D'Orléans appears further in the center.]]
The first known European explorer to navigate the St. Lawrence was
Jacques Cartier , who sighted the
Bay Of Chaleur in 1534 and also claimed
New France for
Francis I . The land was inhabited at the time by the
St. Lawrence Iroquoians . He returned to the area the following year. Arriving at the Gulf on
St. Lawrence ' feast day, he accordingly named it the .
William Henry Johnson, ''French Pathfinders in North America'' (Project Gutenberg)
Until the early 1600s, the French used the name ''Rivière du Canada'' to designate the Saint Lawrence upstream to Montreal and the Ottawa River after Montreal. The Saint Lawrence River served as the main route for exploration of the North American interior.
The St. Lawrence was formerly continuously navigable only as far as Montreal because of the
Lachine Rapids . The
Lachine Canal was the first to allow ships to pass the rapids; the
Saint Lawrence Seaway , an extensive system of canals and locks, now permits ocean-going vessels to pass all the way to
Lake Superior .
In the late 1970s, the river was the subject of a successful ecological campaign (called "Save the River"), originally responding to planned development by the
United States Army Corps Of Engineers . The campaign was organized, among others, by
Abbie Hoffman , then on the run under the pseudonym of Barry Freed.
The river was also navigated by French explorer
Samuel De Champlain .
Occasionally, the French name '' is wrongly translated as Saint Lawrence Seaway since it uses the word ''fleuve'' and not ''rivière''. However, the word ''fleuve'' means a large river, which runs to the ocean or sea. There is no word in English that distinguishes this type of a river from others, and thus is appropriately translated by ''river''. The seaway is a system of artificial canals and is called in French ''la voie maritime du Saint-Laurent''.
The source of the North River in the Mesabi Range in Minnesota is considered to be the source of the Saint Lawrence River. Because it crosses so many lakes, the water system frequently changes its name. From source to mouth, the names are:
The St. Lawrence River is at the heart of many Quebec novels (
Anne Hébert 's
Kamouraska ,
Réjean Ducharme 's
L'avalée Des Avalés ), poems (in works of
Pierre Morency ,
Bernard Pozier ), and songs (
Leonard Cohen 's ''
Suzanne '', Michel Rivard's ''L'oubli''). The river has also been portrayed in paintings, notably by the
Group Of Seven . In addition, the river is the namesake of
Saint-Laurent Herald at the
Canadian Heraldic Authority .
