Overview of the St. Lawrence

Context What is the St. Lawrence? Toponymy of the River

The St. Lawrence is one of Canada's major river and the 19th longest in the world. Mostly located in the Province of Quebec, it links the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.

Rivers always had an important role in the emergence of societies.

Human activities are frequently linked to a river and over the centuries a complex set of relationships have been established between societies, sometimes civilizations and major rivers. Egyptians and the Nile, Chinese and the Chang Jiang, Indians and the Gange, Russians and the Volga, Germans and the Rhine and Americans and the Mississippi are good examples of such linkages. Rivers have always fed their neighboring populations, supported trade, settlements and provided energy (hydraulic and later hydroelectricity). In numerous instances rivers have forged the social and cultural definition of their populations.

For Canada, no other river had such a wide impact on the history, economy and society than the St. Lawrence. From the hunting camps of the First Nations to the St. Lawrence Seaway, the river has seen numerous developments and modes of occupation. Consequently understanding the regional geography of the St. Lawrence provides numerous aspects about Eastern Canada.

The St. Lawrence can be considered from its physiograpphy, its environment, its economy and the commerce it generates.

The St. Lawrence is much more than simply a river flowing from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. It includes several dimension that are discussed in this web site:

• Physiographically, it is a vast drainage basin including numerous rivers and lakes of 574,000 square kilometers (1,344,200 square kilometers if we include the Great Lakes sub-basin).
• Environmentally, it is a set of natural environments having a wide range of flora and fauna, from fresh water species (from the Great Lakes to the estuary) to salt water species (from the estuary to the Gulf of St. Lawrence).
• Economically, it is a concentration of activities including modes of production in the primary (mining and agriculture), secondary (industries and tertiary (services) sectors. The river has favored the accumulation of infrastructures (transport and energy generation), which in turn favored the implementation of industries. It is also a transport system, the St. Lawrence Seaway, accessing the interior of the American continent and distributing goods and raw materials.
• Socially, it is composed of regions, each of them having specific attributes and relationships with the river.

The current name of the St. Lawrence river is actually a cartographic error made in the sixteen century.

Although we credit the French explorer Samuel de Champlain with the definitive name of the St. Lawrence River in 1632, Jacques Cartier first used the term baye sainct Laurens in 1535 to describe a bay on the northern coast of the St. Lawrence he explored on August the 10th (the day of the Middle Ages Saint named Lawrence). The real name for the St. Lawrence Cartier had in mind was grand fleuve de Hochelaga, named after the First Nations settlement he visited on the island of Montreal.

Even though Cartier was only referring to a small bay on the North Coast, a translation error done by Spanish and Italian translators referred to the region as the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Since the Spanish and Italian translations were more used than the original book of Cartier's explorations of the region, the error stayed and became the norm. It thus appeared on maps made by several European cartographers. Rivière de Canada was also a term used to describe the St. Lawrence in the sixteen century, but disappeared thereafter. The name rivière de Cataracoui referred to the portion of the St. Lawrence between Montreal and Lake Ontario but was also replaced.

It is not until the end of the seventeenth century that the St. Lawrence was referred in its current name.