St. Lawrence River

“ Lawrence, issuing from Lake Ontario, flows northeast for some seven hundred and fifty miles—part of the way forming the boundary between Canada and the United States—and falls into the Gulf of St. Lawrence by a broad estuary. But in its widest acceptation the name includes the whole system of the Great Lakes and their connecting streams, with a total length from source to mouth of two thousand miles, and a drainage basin of five hundred and sixty-five thousand two hundred square miles. It pours more fresh water into the ocean than any other river except the Amazon. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The St Lawrence is far the most important Canadian river from the historic and economic points of view, since it provided the main artery of exploration in early days, and with its canals past rapids and between lakes still serves as a great highway of trade between the interior of the continent and the seaports of Montreal and Quebec. ”

“ I can take this boat within an inch of every island and crag and headland between here and Lake Ontario and never scrape off an ounce of paint. I’ve sailed on the ocean, too, and all up and down the Great Lakes. This St. Lawrence river was always like a little pet kitten to me. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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, 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. ”

“ 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 may be a creek running in at the other side, but if there is, I never found it.”
“You seem to understand that district pretty well,” Clay laughed.
“Didn’t I tell you I knew the whole St. Lawrence river south, north, and bottom?” demanded the captain. “Why, when I took that load of provisions in for the surveyors, there were Indians enough along the shore to give a city a population as large as Chicago’s. And there were bears, and wolves, and deer, and beaver, and all sorts of wild creatures in the woods—thick as berries in a swamp.” ”

“ Of the primitive woods nothing is to be seen, for generally the wood is second growth. The banks soon became rocky, and we observed even in the river some projecting rocks. On the left shore they have dug a canal, this, however is too narrow, and only navigable by long boats, resembling the Durham-boats on the St. Lawrence river. In these boats, wood, lumber, stones, especially mill-stones, and the harvest from the upper countries, are carried to Washington.
Five miles above the city, we went over, on a hanging bridge, to the right shore. The chains consist of bars of wrought iron. ”

“ For himself, the sea and the sunlight opened great spaces tomorrow. The moon was full above the river. He looked at it as a man in abstraction watches some clear thing; then he came to a standstill. It was useless to hurry to his train. The traffic swung past the lamplight shone warm on all the golden faces; but Siegmund had already left the city. His face was silver and shadows to the moon; the river, in its soft grey, shaking golden sequins among the folds of its shadows, fell open like a garment before him, to reveal the white moon-glitter brilliant as living flesh. ”

“ Standing as it does upon a lofty bluff, its massive ramparts, and tin-covered 166 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 fade 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Slowly they moved out, and her litter, with its attendance of feathered, lurid, dancing priests, moved after. Everybody danced the tread of the dance-step, even, subtly, the litter-bearers. And out of the plaza they went, past smoking ovens, on the trail to the great cotton-wood trees, that stood like grey-silver lace against the blue sky, bare and exquisite above the snow. The river, diminished, rushed among fangs of ice. ”

“ For overhead there is always the strange radiance of the mountains, there is the mystery of the icy river rushing through its pink shoals into the darkness of the pine-woods, there is always the faint tang of ice on the air, and the rush of hoarse-sounding water.
And the ice and the upper radiance of snow are brilliant with timeless immunity from the flux and the warmth of life. Overhead they transcend all life, all the soft, moist fire of the blood. So that a man must needs live under the radiance of his own negation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 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 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, 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ Next day he succeeded in finding his boat, safely lodged among some willows; but the beaver was missing, having probably been jarred off the nest on the stub by the ice-cake striking against it.
The river had lowered considerably, and Mortimer, while searching for his boat, saw numerous ice-rafts moving down the channel; yet he could not repress a conviction that something more than mere good fortune had directed the ice-cake to touch at his bleak and comfortless perch in the nick of time to save his life. ”

“ The Merrimac River at Lawrence, at the time of the greatest flood in fifty years, carried silt to the amount of about 111 parts in 100,000. This was for a very short time, and the suspended matter consisted almost entirely of sand, which deposited in banks, the deposited sand having an effective size of 0.04 or 0.05 millimeter. No clayey matter is ever carried in quantity by the river. ”

“ 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.... ”