St. Lawrence Seaway
The first efforts to open an inland navigation route were pioneered by Dollier de Casson, Superior of the Sulpician Seminary in Montreal as early as 1680. Notwithstanding the opposition of his superiors and the apathy of local settlers engaged in their struggle for survival, this man of vision and tremendous energy finally succeeded, after twenty years, in signing a contract for the construction of a canal to link Lake St. Louis and Montreal. At Casson’s death, in 1701, his 1.5 m (5 feet) deep canal was 1.6 km (1 mile) long and could not be completed during the French Regime because of lack of funds although sporadic work continued until 1733. The “Casson Canal” was not completed until 1824. Thenceforth known as the Lachine Canal, it had seven locks.
Between the years 1779 and 1783, four small canals were built by Royal Army Engineers on the north shore of the river to carry small vessels from Lake St. Louis to Lake St. Francis. These canals had a depth of 0.76m (2 1/2 feet) and a total of five locks, each 1.8 m (6 feet) wide, the first ever built on the St. Lawrence River and perhaps in North America.
The building of the Erie Canal, in the United States, early in the 19thcentury, provided the incentive for the construction of additional and deeper canals and locks along the St. Lawrence. The American waterway, which offered a fast, uninterrupted link between the growing industrial heartland of North America and the Atlantic Ocean through New York posed a serious threat to
Canadian shipping and, in particular, to the development of the City of Montreal as a major port. Renewed activity resulted in the opening of canals at Cornwall in 1843 and at Beauharnois in 1845; an improved Lachine Canal was also completed in 1848. In the Western section of theSeaway, the first Welland Canal had opened to navigation in 1833 and was completed in 1848.
All in all, by the middle of the 19th century, a continuous water route linking Lake Erie to the sea was available to vessels of less than 2.4 m (8 feet) draught. However, the economic growth and commercial development foreseen by the canal diggers did not materialize immediately. While dedicated men dug canals and built locks, another group of equally dedicated pioneers were also hard at work building a railroad. The viability of water transportation largely depends on the movement of a large volume of goods over long distances. If the embryonic seaway of 1850 could provide distance, its depth and lock dimensions precluded the shipment of heavy bulk cargoes aboard large vessels.