Saint Lawrence River and Seaway, Hydrographic system of east-central North America. It connects the North River (source of the St. Louis River, in the U.S. state of Minnesota, which flows into Lake Superior) with Cabot Strait, leading into the Atlantic Ocean in the extreme east of Canada, crossing the interior of the North American continent for some 2,500 miles (4,000 km). It allows deep-draft ocean-going vessels access to the rich industrial and agricultural regions of the Great Lakes and is of vital geographic, hydrologic, and economic importance to the United States and Canada. The system comprises three broad sectors: the Great Lakes region, with narrow riverlike sections linking the lakes themselves; the centre (corresponding largely to the St. Lawrence River) from the eastern outflow of Lake Ontario, near the Canadian town of Kingston, Ont., to the Île d’Orléans, just downstream from the city of Quebec; and the St. Lawrence estuary, between Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, which, passing Anticosti Island, broadens further to become the oval-shaped marine region known as the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The St. Lawrence Seaway, a massive navigational project undertaken jointly by Canada and the United States and completed in 1959, forged the final link in the waterway by clearing a throughway in a 186-mile stretch of the St. Lawrence River between Montreal and Lake Ontario. Although the official seaway consists of only this stretch and the Welland Canal (connecting Lakes Ontario and Erie), the entire Great Lakes–St. Lawrence system has come to be known as the St. Lawrence Seaway.
St. Lawrence River Article
Saint Lawrence River and Seaway summary
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Quebec Summary
Quebec, city, port, and capital of Quebec province, Canada. One of the oldest cities in Canada—having celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2008—Quebec city has a distinct old-world character and charm. It is the only remaining walled city in North America north of Mexico and was recognized as a
Montreal Summary
Montreal, city, Quebec province, southeastern Canada. Montreal is the second most-populous city in Canada and the principal metropolis of the province of Quebec. The city of Montreal occupies about three-fourths of Montreal Island (Île de Montréal), the largest of the 234 islands of the Hochelaga
North America Summary
North America, third largest of the world’s continents, lying for the most part between the Arctic Circle and the Tropic of Cancer. It extends for more than 5,000 miles (8,000 km) to within 500 miles (800 km) of both the North Pole and the Equator and has an east-west extent of 5,000 miles. It
river Summary
River, (ultimately from Latin ripa, “bank”), any natural stream of water that flows in a channel with defined banks . Modern usage includes rivers that are multichanneled, intermittent, or ephemeral in flow and channels that are practically bankless. The concept of channeled surface flow, however,