Talk:St. Lawrence River

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Does anyone know for whom the Saint Lawrence River was named? 166.90.234.48 08:03 Aug 12, 2002 (PDT)

I have every reason to believe that it is the Saint Lawrence who was the first papal librarian and who was martyred on a gridiron, not least because the symbol of the St. Lawrence Herald (a ceremonial office under the Governor-General) is a gridiron. -

"According to tradition, for his presumed impudence, Lawrence was then slowly roasted on a grill on the site of the Basilica di San Lorenzo in Rome, in the hope that he would publicly renounce his religion and reveal the names of the wealthy Christians. He is often represented holding a gridiron to memorialize this grisly manner of martyrdom. Although St. Lawrence was most certainly beheaded and not roasted, the traditions of his being cooked are somewhat stronger than actual fact. As a result, St Lawrence is also considered a patron saint for cooks." [1] --Eloquence

Old Name

PRESENTLY THE FIRST PARAGRAPH OF THE ARTICLE ON THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER ENDS WITH THIS JOKE: as named after Lawrence Johnson (currently a teacher in LaGrange, Illinois) for his many incredible contributions to society and for generally being awesome. HOW THIS GOT ONLINE IS TO MY AWE, why not attribute this name after LAWRENCE WELK as an allegory to his flowing music... THE TRUTH ABOUT NAMING OF THE SAINT LAWRENCE RIVER IS When Jacques Cartier entered the River in 1534 it was the day catholics celebrate Saint Lawrence day so he named the River as Saint Lawrence in his journal where he also refers to it as the great river of Kanata, since he believed the country was named Kanata from what he first heard from the natives he met. Yet Kanata meant «my village». With hindsight one can appreciate the «Indian» Chief was inviting Cartier (who was aboard his ship) to come to his village. French and English archives from the XVIth century refer to the Great River as the Saint Lawrence. To get the first mention of LaGrange Illinois (1800's) one needs to consult with archives dating no sooner than the XIXth Century...sorry but Pr. Lawrence Johnson is 400 years late... Andretheguide Andretheguide (talk) 10:20, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I understood that the old name "River Canada" (and French equivalent) was not used to describe the whole of the St Lawrence. Rather, it referred to the St Lawrence River as far upstream as Montreal and then to the Ottawa River, which was presumably once considered the chief tributary.

It is certainly shown this way on Morden's map of 1695 (although that was drawn in London by a man who probably never visited Canada :-). Does anyone have any more info? Cambyses 21:53, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Fresh Water System

What exactly is a "fresh water system"? A link with a definition would be nice. By any definition I can think of, the Amazon is the world's largest fresh water system. Chl 21:04, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That might depend on whether or not the Great Lakes are included... bneely 19:15, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Drainage area of Amazon: 7 million km²; St Lawrence including Great Lakes: 1.03 million km². Average discharge of Amazon: 180,000 m³/s; St Lawrence: 10,400 m³/s. --Chl 16:31, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The "largest" claim is based on the total volume of water in the system, not the discharge rate. Source: EPA. - Kmusser 3 August 2005

Origin

The article says the river starts in Ontario where the Great Lakes drain into it, while the infobox says it rises in Minnesota. I wouldn't consider the Great Lakes to be part of the river, though they are clearly at the heart of its basin. But I'm not a geographer, hydrologist, or cartographer. Any comments, or should I change its origin in the table to Ontario? Thanks, —Papayoung ☯ 18:40, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi! Later in the article, the 'true' source for the St Lawrence is noted as being the North River in the Mesabi Range in Minnesota; it doesn't appear that way (i.e., with its source in Ontario) because the Great Lakes are so predominant and circuitous. (I decided to add the river table to add clarity and since it appears in other rivers; but I don't think there is a standard.)

So: more clarity is needed! I'd appreciate if both of these can be reconciled in text and through a little more digging. Thoughts? Thanks again! E Pluribus Anthony 18:59, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Distinction between gulf and river needed

This article needs a comment on the issue where to draw the end-point on St. Lawrence as a river. As of now, there is none. I am aware of that the long gulf form Anticosti to about Québec city is often considered to be a part of St. Lawrence, but is that stretch really a river? If I'm not wrong, it's not, but the water lies at sea level and is brackish. Correct me if I'm worng and also comment to the article about the issue. 193.167.7.27 16:00, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

That's all estuary and is generally labeled as part of the river in commercial Atlases. I checked when working on the Gulf article and there doesn't seem to be a commonly accepted point where the river ends and the gulf begins. Kmusser 14:42, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

And perhaps one more question issued - the list of tributaries. It must have average discharge 5000-6000 cub.m/s near Ontario, so what was taken into account for final figure? It would be great to see in article.--Beaber (talk) 14:06, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Not everywhere. In "The Times Concise Atlas of the World", the estuary is named just "St. Lawrence", without "river", and its coloring is the same as for other parts of the ocean. I.e, the color is different from a river or a lake. [[[Special:Contributions/88.112.244.97|88.112.244.97]] (talk) 22:01, 2 September 2017 (UTC)]

I agree entirely. From a hydrological point of view, the St. Lawrence estuary is not a river beyond Ile d'Orleans, but a part of the sea. Calling a part of the sea a "river" does not make it a river. Likewise, calling Lake Maracaibo a "lake" does not make it a lake; it is a brackish bay. For one more point of comparison: the Norwegians could start labeling their fjords as "rivers", since they are way narrower than St. Lawrence estuary. But would the name change their hydrological identity? [[[Special:Contributions/88.112.244.97|88.112.244.97]] (talk) 22:01, 2 September 2017 (UTC)]

POV map

The map is POV, because it shows the counties in the US but doesn't show them in Canada. -- Earl Andrew - talk 04:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. Kmusser 15:13, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

WW2 History of the gulf and river

Maybe something about the Battle of the St. Lawrence could be added to the History section? Originalname37 (talk) 16:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I added it.Originalname37 (talk) 16:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Tuscarora?

I'm a bit confused why lots of articles (Schenectady, New York, Hudson River, Mohawk River), including this one, have the name of the place in the Tuscarora language. The Tuscarora are from North Carolina and did not come to New York or Canada until AFTER Europeans had already been there first (in the case of Canada and the Hudson River the Europeans were there a good 200+ years first). Tuscarora is not a good language to translate these places into. Might as well put the Irish translation or Basque, they may even have been to these places before the French and Dutch, there would therefore be a more legitimate reason for their inclusion. Iroquois or Algonquin languages that were in the area should be used. If no one else on any of these pages comes up with a really good reason to keep them, I'm going to do a systematic search of all places in the area and remove all mentioning of these places names in Tuscarora.Camelbinky (talk) 22:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Drainage?

Isn't the St. Lawrence River the only river that goes from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic? -Supermonkey Jasonxu98 (talk) 00:19, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Other than the navigation channels with numerous locks, indeed the St. Lawrence doesn't have any parallel waterbody. This prevails, whether in the Great Lakes region, or on its W-S-W to E-N-E way toward its gulf and the Atlantic. Of course, at times the river is split in smaller sections as it passes many archipelagoes, but none of the natural islands are long enough to separate the river for long streches. Francsois (talk) 00:29, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Removal of misleading photo from this page!

Image:Aerial photo 6 Saint Lawrence River.jpg

Under the sub-section Names, i have put this photo between HTML remark brackets <!->, since it is quite misleading.

Having lived in and around Montreal for about 4 decades, as well as having worked as a motorized courrier very knowledgeable of local maps, i know that the above image is NOT of St. Lawrence River. It's a photo of two parallel rivers to the north of Montreal Island, Rivière des Prairies and Rivière des Mille Îles, which are part of the Ottawa River delta into the St. Lawrence.

I have written to the user who has posted it, on their talk page (as they don't seem to provide any other means for contacting them), so to tell them know they should both change the descriptive text of the image, as well to suggest them to submit the image to the aforementioned geographic article pages, plus on Îles Laval, and Jesus Island, which is occupied by (Laval City).

The 4 above articles (see links) could clearly benefit from such a detailed aerial picture. Francsois (talk) 00:50, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Is the Gulf of Saint Lawrence really the estuary for the Saint Lawrence.

The saltwater part starts slightly after Quebec City and increases salinity downstream and through the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Or is the entire part from Ile Orleans to the Atlantic considered the Gulf of Saint Lawrence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sega31098 (talk • contribs) 04:58, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

How wide?

A statement that the St. Lawrence River is the widest river in the world should be accompanied by a figure. I could not find one in the article. I had always thought the Amazon River to be the widest. Caeruleancentaur (talk) 12:39, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Depending on what is considered to be the mouth of the Amazon River, it is said to be anywhere from 202 miles to 9.3 miles in width. Determining where river ends and mouth/estuary/gulf begins is debatable in either case. Caeruleancentaur (talk) 12:50, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Inclusion of the 1000 Islands Region

This article should also mention that the St. Lawrence contains the 1000 Islands region. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BuffaloFil (talk • contribs) 23:16, 26 December 2010 (UTC) harry potter!!!

tidal?

How far inland is it tidal? Also, it has a very curious, gradually opening mouth. Would love some more discussion of that. When I follow the link to Gulf of St. Lawrence, it is not about that widening mouth, but about further out.TCO (talk) 19:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Just added info from a couple sources saying it becomes tidal around Quebec City. The first source, Rivers of North America, has a lot more info about the estuary/tidal portion of the river below Quebec City. A quick look through Google Books on the topic (this was my search paramters) gave the impression that particularly large tides can sometimes influence the river beyond Quebec City, and the mean tidal range at Quebec City is 4.1 meters, which is pretty big. Still, it seems common to cite Quebec City as about where the river turns tidal, so I wrote "in the vicinity of". Lots more info about the tides and estuary can be found in that Google Books search on the estuary portion.

I didn't see anything specifically about the gradually widening mouth. I'd guess it is due to geologic factors. The shape reminds me a bit of the Río de la Plata in South America. I also changed the claim of the St. Lawrence's estuary being the largest in the world to "one of the largest in the world". The Río de la Plata is sometimes said to be the largest estuary in the world as well as (sometimes said to be) the widest river. These things are impossible to say definitively since the "river" turns into "ocean" over a large estuary "zone". There's no way to objectively say where the river ends and the sea begins, although I'm sure there are sources out there that make the "largest" and "widest" claim for both the St. Lawrence and the Río de la Plata. Pfly (talk) 01:24, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Great response, thanks.

Thanks. I just remembered reading in one of those Google Book sources something about a significant tidal bore occurring on the tidal part of the river. Could be worth adding such info with further research... Pfly (talk) 01:45, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Discharge

The page currently says "The average discharge at the mouth is 9,850 m3/s (347,800 cu ft/s)." The source for this is The Atlas of Canada, a decent source but not, in my experience, as good as one might expect. The book Rivers of North America provides a number of discharge stats on page 990—all quite a bit larger than 9,850—up to 16,800 m3/s. Also, the Atlas of Canada's figure is not for the "mouth". The webpage says: "The discharge of a stream or river is derived from Canadian water level measurements at the furthest-downstream gauging station." Should we change the discharge figure to 16,800, with a location of "downstream of the Saguenay River? Or maybe there is better info out there. Pfly (talk) 01:35, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I'll just make this change. Perhaps a better, more detailed source can be found though. Pfly (talk) 01:36, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

16,800? This would make the Saint Lawrence larger than the Mississippi. Surely, it's not this big? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tatlayoko (talk • contribs) 20:36, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

One source says it's larger than the Mississippi and dozens of sources says it not. That Jump is incredible and really not believable. I looked up the statements in "Rivers of North America", but cannot verify thier sources. I will continue to use the figures from the "Atlas of Canada" and suggest that this page do the same. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Welkiner (talk • contribs) 04:59, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Max outflow of Saint Lawrence

I was just thinking, it would be nice to know what the max discharge recorded for the river. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.92.94.137 (talk) 07:45, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Who controls it?

I believe the Federal fisheries department patrols/controls the water, for pollution , boats, and human safety. This fact is needed in the article.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 10:33, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Several different jurisdictions apply to St-Lawrence river, and my list is not exhaustive, as long as environment/pollution (Canada Federal : Environment and Climate Change Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada / Quebec provincial : Ministry of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks (Quebec) and fr:Ministère du Développement durable, de l'Environnement et de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques), water levels (International St. Lawrence River Board of Control established by the International Joint Commission), navigation/human safety (Canadian Coast Guard) are concerned! -- Hugo MC 15:23, 18 April 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hugo MC (talk • contribs)

Physiographic Regions

I amended the section stating as fact that the Saint Lawrence Valley "is part of the greater Appalachian division" since that is a position the two Laurentian countries' surveys disagree about. Per the Canadian atlas, the Saint Lawrence Lowlands are a distinct physiographic region on an equal level with the Appalachian division. Given the USGS's rather terrible track record at anything involving Canadian physiographic regions (eg, that they still count the Adirondacks as part of the Appalachians), and the fact that most of the Saint Lawrence valley is in fact in Canada, the discrepancy seemed very important to note.--Guillaume Hébert-Jodoin (talk) 16:56, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Calling the estuary a "river" is an error

Hi!

In its present form, the article includes the St. Lawrence estuary as a part of the river. Before the slight edits I made a hour or so ago, the article did not even mention this issue exists. I acknowledge, of course, that including the estuary is probably the most common way to draw St. Lawrence's limits, but I also think it is an error. What is a "river", a "lake", "a gulf", etc., should be defined in terms of hydrology, not in terms of common parlance.

In hydrological terms, the estuary is rather clearly a part of the sea. The water is saline: in the inner estuary brackish and in the outer parts pretty close to oceanic salinity (about 3 % or 30 PSU). The estuary is very wide, up to ca. 150 km -- by far wider than any true river in the world, including Amazon that has about 20 x the discharge of St. Lawrence. It is also deeper than any true river. And if I am not completely wrong, the estuary lies at the sea level.

Source: A salinity map (not very good -- certainly not the best available via Google -- but at least from a credible source): http://www.mddelcc.gouv.qc.ca/rapportsurleau/portrait-Qc-aquatique-eau-nord-sud-est-ouest.htm

Quality print atlases, at least the ones I have seen, confirm this view. In "The Times Concise Atlas of the World" (8th ed. 2000, ISBN 0723010846), the estuary is named just "St. Lawrence", without the "river", and it is colored in the same way as ocean (i.e., white at < 200 m depth and shades of blue at greater depths). Lakes and rivers are colored differently. The same in "The Times Atlas of the World - comprehensive edition" (7th ed. 1985, ISBN 0723002657).

The Finnish "Weilin+Göösin suuri maailmankartasto" (2th ed. 1984, ISBN 9513529134), based on a German atlas by the publisher Bertelsmann, uses the name "river". Yet, again, the estuary is colored as ocean. In Times 2000 and Weilin+Göös, the break point is placed at Île d'Orléans, while the Times 1985 uses ocean colors up to Lake Saint Pierre!

To help the discussion, I have translated below a section from the Finnish Wikipedia. The original source, from Environment Canada, is not available anymore (of course :), but the information seems similar to the previous link (QC government site). However, since I don't know French very well, I use the languages I can:

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lawrence_(joki)#Hydrografia

---

1. The riverine zone stretches from Cornwall to Lake Saint-Pierre. It [the zone] is over 240 km long and over 10 km wide at its widest point. In this zone, the water is fresh and tidal effects relatively low. ...

2. The transition zone between river and estuary stretches from the eastern end of Lake Saint-Pierre to the eastern end of Île d’Orléans. It is over 160 km long ... In this zone, the water changes gradually from fresh to slightly brackish, and tidal effects become larger. The river is 13--40 meters deep ...

3. The inner estuary stretches from eastern end of Île d’Orléans to the confluence of River Saguenay. It is 150 km long, 17 km wide in average, and 100 to 300 meters deep. In this zone, the fresh riverine water mixes strongly with the salty seawater because of tides and currents. ...

4. The outer estuary stretches from the Saguenay confluence to the mouth of St. Lawrence Bay. It is over 230 km long, 42 km wide in average, and 100 to 400 meters deep. ... In this zone, the conditions in the river transform gradually to oceanic.

---

As a final point, I think we should compare the situation to that of (a) Lake Maracaibo, (b) Lake(s) Michigan-Huron, (c) Gulf of Finland and (d) Chesapeake Bay.

Lake Maracaibo is called a lake, but the English Wikipedia admits it's a "tidal bay". Lakes Huron and Michigan are most commonly thought to be different lakes, but they share the same surface elevation and they are not hydrologically separated. Thus, the issue is acknowledged in Wikipedia in e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Michigan%E2%80%93Huron

The Gulf of Finland, a part of the Baltic Sea, shares many of the characteristics of St. Lawrence estuary. But, in fact, Gulf of Finland is way LESS oceanic in all terms: it is narrower (ca. 70--120 km), shallower (only 123 m in its deepest point) and way less saline (only about 0,7 % or 7 PSU), and has little to no tides.

Thus, Gulf of Finland could be called a part of the Neva River, but it's not, because the gulf lies at sea level and is hydrologically connected with the ocean.

Much of the same applies to Chesapeake Bay. Moreover, besides being narrow, shallow and brackish, Chesapeake Bay _is_ an estuary (Gulf of Finland is not, at least not very clearly). Yet, even it is thought to be part of the sea, since it lies at the sea level.

[[[Special:Contributions/88.112.244.97|88.112.244.97]] (talk) 23:28, 2 September 2017 (UTC)]

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Move

I'm not sure why this was never brought up before really. Every government and NGO around the river and seaway, including most notably the Great Lakes Commission that oversees the entire system, uses "St. Lawrence River" and not "Saint Lawrence River". I've been bold and made the move; figured I'd mention it. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 00:32, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Mohawk name

Should we include Kaniatarowanenneh, the Mohawk name for the river, in the article?

Sources: http://www.wampumchronicles.com/kaniatarowanenneh.html https://context.reverso.net/translation/french-english/kaniatarowanenneh

Vincent (talk) 21:12, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Photos of St. Lawrence River

I can't make an acceptable layout with my photos, can someone tell me how to do it? Nichole Ouellette (talk) 10:21, 15 April 2023 (UTC) 000730 15a 3545 2367 fleuve I Orleans.jpg Ile St Quentin 021.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nichole Ouellette (talk • contribs) 11:08, 15 April 2023 (UTC)