Saint Lawrence River

“ On the river levels were flat gleams of flood water. The sky was grey, with glisten of silver here and there. In Wilford Churchyard the dahlias were sodden with rain—wet black-crimson balls. No one was on the path that went along the green river meadow, along the elm-tree colonnade.
There was the faintest haze over the silvery-dark water and the green meadow-banks, and the elm-trees that were spangled with gold. The river slid by in a body, utterly silent and swift, intertwining among itself like some subtle, complex creature. Clara walked moodily beside him. ”

“ In looking at the great sources of wealth possessed by these provinces, our attention is at once arrested by the growing importance of the St Lawrence as an outlet to the produce, not only of the Canadas, but of a vast area of the States territory. With the exception, perhaps, of the Mississippi, no river in the world opens up so grand a highway for the industry of man as the St Lawrence, with the chain of vast lakes and innumerable rivers that unite with it in the two thousand miles of its majestic progress to the ocean. ”

“ The superficial shells of the adjacent heights belong to the Pleistocene age, and show that in even that comparatively modern time the lower lands of Upper Canada were submerged beneath the level of the ocean, and that a series of deep seas, connected by broad sounds, occupied the place of the great lakes. Not until the last upheaval of the land was the river now known as the St. Lawrence called into existence, to begin its work of excavation ”

“ There is probably no river on earth that has heard so many vows of love as the St. Lawrence; for there is not a Canadian boatman that has ever passed up or down the river without repeating, as the blade of his oar dropped into the stream, and as it arose, the national refrain. ”

“ Lawrence and its tributaries the drama of Canadian history was played; the furthest horizon was the Mississippi and the whole line of the lakes; a nearer view was bounded by the Ohio valley; while the immediate foreground was formed by the St. Lawrence from Quebec to Lake Ontario, the centremost point being the confluence of the Richelieu with the main river.
Movement, constant movement, these waterways suggested; exploration, adventure, and ultimately conquest; pressing onward by strength or skill through a boundless area, with something unknown always beyond ”

“ Lawrence filled the air, the river trembling with violet tints and glancing pearly shafts. Presently they crossed a swiftly flowing stream, and emerged upon the open country. Here no vagrant echo, not even the stir of a leaf, disturbed the stillness. The dew was rich with cool fragrance. Now dark trees would close up the path, then it would widen into a world of space as it passed into the odorous moorland or crossed little rivulets tinkling on their way to the river. The moonbeams, piercing through the interlacing branches, threw chequered shadows on the path. ”

“ Lawrence towards the Gulf, is the finest of all, scarcely surpassed by anything in the world. Your eye follows the long range of lofty mountains until their blue summits are blended and lost in the blue of the sky. Some of these, partially cleared round the base, are sprinkled over with neat cottages; and the green slopes that spread around them are covered with flocks and herds. The surface of the splendid river is diversified with islands of every size and shape, some in wood, others partially cleared, and adorned with orchards and white farm-houses. ”

“ Lawrence. The shores of the stream are almost uninhabited. The hills rise from the water's edge, and if ever a narrow vale divides them, it is but to open drearier solitudes to the eye. In such a valley would stand a saw-mill, and huddled about it a few poor huts, while a friendless road, scarce discernible from the boat, wound up from the river through the valley, and led to wildernesses all the forlorner for the devastation of their forests. ”

“ There was only room for their four feet.
“It’s a swindle!” he said. “But there’s a rut where a man has been, so if we go on I guess we shall find the path again.”
The river slid and twined its great volume. On the other bank cattle were feeding on the desolate flats. The cliff rose high above Paul and Clara on their right hand. They stood against the tree in the watery silence.
“Let us try going forward,” he said; and they struggled in the red clay along the groove a man’s nailed boots had made. They were hot and flushed. Their barkled shoes hung heavy on their steps. ”

“ Lawrence at Bic Islands, where it enters the great estuary, the length of this great water system, including the great Lakes, is about two thousand miles. The area thus drained by the St. Lawrence River is nearly six millions of square miles. The largest craft can ascend it to Quebec, and smaller ones to Montreal; above which city, navigation being impeded by rapids, the seven canals before mentioned have been constructed that vessels may avoid this danger while voyaging to Lake Ontario. ”

“ But he was watching her throat below the ear, where the flush was fusing into the honey-white, and her mouth that pouted disconsolate. She stirred against him as she walked, and his body was like a taut string.
Half-way up the big colonnade of elms, where the Grove rose highest above the river, their forward movement faltered to an end. He led her across to the grass, under the trees at the edge of the path. The cliff of red earth sloped swiftly down, through trees and bushes, to the river that glimmered and was dark between the foliage. The far-below water-meadows were very green. ”

“ The wind had subsided, and the great lake, which serves as a filtering basin for the turbid waters entering it from the Slave River, was here as clear as that of the great inland lakes of Eastern Canada—Huron, Erie or Ontario. Wherever a river contains muddy water, you may at once conclude that it has no large lake expansions above it. In nearly every stream pouring its waters into the great clear water lakes of the St. Lawrence basin the water is dark and more or less impure ”

“ Rivers may serve as political lines of demarcation and therefore fix political frontiers; but they can never take the place of natural boundaries. A migrating or expanding people tend always to occupy both slopes of a river valley. They run their boundary of race or language across the axis of their river basin, only under exceptional circumstances along the stream itself. The English-French boundary in the St. Lawrence Valley crosses the river in a broad transitional zone of mingled people and speech in and above the city of Montreal. ”

“ Lawrence, we cannot fail to be impressed by some of the amazing features of the Saguenay River. By actual soundings many parts of the river are over one thousand feet in depth, and none are less than one hundred feet. In places it is as deep five feet from the shore as in the middle of the channel. To boat or canoe on such waters and in the midst of such majestic and sublime surroundings is the one thrilling experience of a lifetime. The stoutest heart must pay involuntary homage to nature when gliding beneath boldly over-hanging masses of rock that must weigh millions of tons. ”

“ The possession of the mouth of the St. Lawrence concerns not only those who happen to have made their settlements along the narrow line which borders it, but all who now dwell, or will hereafter dwell, in the great basin of that river. ”

“ Lawrence, majestic river, stretched like sheet of polished steel, as far as eye can reach, we stand upon thy level shores. Rapid—wide, rushing expanse of waters, with what glorious brightness thou look’st upon thy verdant shores, covered with continuous lines of snow-white cottages, and listenest to the soft music of the religious bells of the kind-hearted, cheerful habitans—as, with rude painted cross upon their door posts, they scare away the fiend, and joyously intercommune, in honest simple neighbourhood. ”

“ Standing as it does upon a lofty bluff, its massive ramparts and tin-covered roofs, domes, and cupolas suggest the idea of immense power and opulence. Just below the city, the St. Lawrence spreads out to the width of three or four miles, while from the margin of either shore fades away a continued succession of hills, which vary from five hundred to fifteen hundred feet in height. Those upon the north shore are the highest, and both sides of the river, for a distance of some twenty miles below the city, are plentifully sprinkled with the white cottages of the Canadian peasantry. ”

“ Lawrence, is sometimes narrow and rapid and sometimes expands into lake-like reaches. At the large town of Montreal begins the quiet course, and below Quebec the St. Lawrence opens out like a huntsman's horn. The river is frozen over every year, and in some places the ice is so thick that rails can be laid on it and heavy goods trains run over it. In spring, when the ice begins to break up, the neighbourhood of the river is dangerous, and sometimes mountains of ice thrust themselves over the lower parts of Montreal. It can be cold in Montreal—down to-30°. It is still worse in northern Canada. ”

“ Lawrence they appear as ranges of billowy rounded ridges on the north side of the river, and as viewed from the water or the southern shore, especially when sunset deepens their tints to blue and violet, they present a grand and massive appearance, which, in the eye of the geologist, who knows that they have endured the battles and the storms of time longer than any other mountains, « 99 » invests them with the dignity which their mere elevation would fail to give. ”

“ Lawrence, from the Thousand Islands to Montreal, the passage of which in the large lake steamers is an exciting voyage. The constant changes of scenery at every turn and in every rood of progress is almost bewildering. Then the alternation of rapids and broad expanses of river, the bird-like motion as the steamer sinks and sails down through the rapids, and the sense of relief when it seems to rise and glide over the smooth river, vary and increase the excitement. There is developed in one of those expanses a peculiar geological feature called the Split Rock. ”

“ Lawrence to be 'common highways,' the true test of the navigability of a stream does not depend on the mode by which commerce is, or may be, conducted, nor the difficulties attending navigation. If this were so, the public would be deprived of the use of many of the large rivers of the country over which rafts of lumber of great value are constantly taken to market.
It would be a narrow rule to hold that in this country, unless a river was capable of being navigated by steam or sail vessels, it could not be treated as a public highway. ”

“ Lawrence have never heard the name which it bears in the lower part of its course. It rises near another father of waters,—the Mississippi,—issuing from a remarkable spring far up in the woods, called Lake Superior, fifteen hundred miles in circumference; and several other springs there are thereabouts which feed it. It makes such a noise in its tumbling down at one place as is heard all round the world. Bouchette, the Surveyor-General of the Canadas, calls it “the most splendid river on the globe” ”

“ It commands an extensive prospect of the St. Lawrence, which is here upwards of twenty miles wide, and bounded on the opposite shore by a multitude of ragged mountains. The river is studded with islands, and ships are constantly passing hither and thither over the broad expanse, and when, from their great distance, all these objects are constantly enveloped in a gauze-like atmosphere, there is a magic influence in the scenery. The principal attraction is a waterfall, about a mile in the rear of the village. ”

“ Lawrence emerges lazily from Lake Ontario—or where Lake Ontario narrows into the St. Lawrence, whichever you will—the bed of the river crosses a transverse range of low granite hills, whose bare summits have been ground into dome-shaped bosses (or roches moutonnées, as they say in Switzerland) by the enormous ice-sheets of the Glacial epoch. The granite of the chain is very hard and pure; it is quarried in large masses, indeed, for monumental and building purposes, among these very islands ”

“ But what detracts from this river’s [St. Lawrence] utility is the waterfalls and rapids extending nearly forty leagues,—that is from Montreal to the mouth of Lake Ontario,—there being only the two lakes I have mentioned where navigation is easy. In ascending these rapids it is often necessary to alight from the canoe and walk in the river, whose waters are rather low in such places, especially near the banks. The canoe is grasped with the hand and dragged behind, two men usually sufficing for this.... ”

“ Lawrence truly as the most navigable river in the world. Between Montreal and Quebec it averages about two miles wide. The tide is felt as far up as Three Rivers, four hundred and thirty-two miles, which is as far as from Boston to Washington. ”

“ The vast lakes from which this river issues furnish its channel with an inexhaustible supply of water, and present a surface too extensive to be sensibly elevated by any extraordinary rains. A strong westerly wind, however, will affect the level of the St. Lawrence, and occasion a rise of six feet in the waters to the eastern extremity of Lake Erie. An easterly wind also upon the Orinoco will check its current, elevate the upper part of the stream, and force its waters into the channels of its tributaries, giving them a backward flow, and causing them to be flooded ”

“ Lawrence River has been removed from Quebec 180 miles upstream to Montreal, and that of the Clyde from Port Glasgow 16 miles to Glasgow itself, so that now the largest ocean steamers come to dock where fifty years ago children waded across the stream at ebb tide. Such artificial modifications, however, are rare, for they are made only where peculiarly rich resources or superior lines of communication with the hinterland justify the expenditures ”