Pied Beauty

The St. Lawrence Seaway is a man-made, inland waterway with a distance of around 2,340 miles. It is a network of lakes, rivers, canals and locks for commercial shipping and use from personal boats. The idea of an inland water route has been thought of and looked for many times. Explorers from early America continuously hoped for a route right through North America. Jacques Cartier thought he found the passage when he saw the St. Lawrence River, but when he came upon the Lachine Rapids, he knew that no ship could pass it. But when more talk about continuing the St. Lawrence River and making the St. Lawrence Seaway arose in the mid 1900’s, political, technical and economical problems arose. In 1954, after around 20 years of negotiation, Canada finally decided to do it anyway, with or without U.S. cooperation. The U.S., not wanting an all Canadian Seaway, decided to join in. With many difficult obstacles to overcome, the price of the final project climbed to a total of $470 million dollars, Canada paying approximately $336 million and the U.S. contributed around $134 million. Building the St. Lawrence Seaway had many benefits. Instead of shipping to a port on the Atlantic Ocean and having to pay even more for the shipping by train or truck, the commercial ships can go even further inland, making the cost drop. And ships use less fuel, less emissions, less deaths, less spills and less noise than trains and trucks. Ships can carry more cargo than 700 trucks, or 240 trains, making the shipping and handling fees on the goods drop drastically. Shipping through the Seaway is safer, more economical, better for the environment and easier than shipping cargo to an Atlantic Ocean port and continuing it by train or truck to the final destination. It became obvious why so many people have been searching for and anticipating an inland water route through the middle of North America, when it was finished in 1959.

The St. Lawrence Seaway is a continuation of the St. Lawrence River. The Seaway connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Coast to make Shipping cheaper and easier. In a joint cooperation between Canada and the United States, workers dug canals, reshaped the St. Lawrence River, plowed through whole towns and built a complex system of locks. For the standard water depth of 27 feet, workers had to dredge the canals, channels, rivers and small lakes to make them deeper. It was an extraordinary task, which moved 192.5 million cubic meters of earth and adding 5.7 million cubic meters of concrete.

Problems occurred when the Seaway had to run through towns and villages. Most relocated people were living on the Canadian side, due to the geography of the river and the towns along it. This was one of the problems holding back the government from building the Seaway. People were forced to move by the legal device of expropriation. The Lachine Rapids had to be flooded and the nearby towns had to be relocated. Many people were extremely upset. Some were so unhappy that armed altercations occurred. But these agencies paid a reasonable price for the lad they were about to destroy. 6,500 people had to be moved for the flooding of the Lachine Rapids. Thousands of acres of shorelines are now underwater as workers made the St. Lawrence River new boundaries.

Though several thousand people were forced to mover from their home, the St. Lawrence Seaway has been such a remarkable feat that it benefits almost every person in North America and other continents. It generates a large quantity of business and saves huge amounts of money so that the St. Lawrence Seaway has become one of the most famous waterways on the planet.

Navigation on the seaway is generally open from early April to mid December. The seaway can also accommodate ships up to 730 feet long and 76 feet wide. It takes eight to ten days for a ship to go from Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean. On average, fifty million tons of cargo is passed over the seaway each year. Since 1959, more than two billion tons of cargo, about three billion dollars U.S., has moved to and from Canada, the U.S., and almost fifty other nations. The St. Lawrence Seaway generates forty thousand jobs and two billion dollars of annual personal income. The seaway also, supports a vast assortment of industries, related to the cargo it handles. Most of the cargo shipped is grains, iron ore, coal, and steel. Now, finished goods are primarily shipped in containers. The St. Lawrence Seaway Project greatly affected many people’s lives and futures. It also greatly affected the economic life of the northeastern part of Northeastern part of North America the most. The seaway is a very important route for international trade, expanding, and increasing trade all over North America.