PICTURESQUE RIVER
The St. Lawrence comes down to the gulf under various names. From the little River St. Louis it pours through the great inland sea of Lake Superior and the St. Mary’s River, with its crowded canals, into Lake Huron; thence, in another outflow, through the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers to Lake Erie and from there by the Niagara River and its wonderful falls, to Lake Ontario. From Lake Ontario, for 750 miles, it rolls to the gulf and the ocean under its own historic name and is never less than a mile in width. As it broadens and deepens into beautiful lakes or narrows and shallows into restless rapids, as it sweeps past cliffs crowned with verdure or great natural ridges capped with dense forests, as these break frequently to reveal fertile valleys and a rolling country, or rise into rugged and yet exquisitely picturesque embodiments of nature such as the heights of Quebec, there comes the thought that here, indeed, is a fitting entrance to a great country, an adequate environment for the history of a romantic people, a natural stage-setting for great events and gallant deeds.
Though greater than any other Canadian river, the St. Lawrence was, and is, a natural type and embodiment of them all. Sweeping in its volume of water, sometimes wild and impetuous, never slow or sluggish, on its way to the sea, ever changing in its currents and rapids and waterfalls, its lakes and incoming river branches, passing through varied scenery yet always preserving in its course a degree of dignity which approaches majesty, it reveals a combination of volume and vastness, beauty and somberness, which makes it in more senses than one the father of waters on this continent—“the great river without an end,” as an Indian once described it to Cartier.
GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE
The gulf into which the river broadens is more or less a land-locked sea, deep and free from reef or shoal, running 500 miles from north to south and 243 from east to west. In its center lies the once lonely and barren Isle of Anticosti; not far from Gaspé Bay, two miles out at sea, lies La Roche Percé, a gigantic pile of stone with perpendicular walls forming, in certain conditions of the weather, a marvelous combination of colors outlined against the blue sky and emerald sea. In this rock there is now an opening broken by the unceasing dash of the waves; according to Denys there were at one time three great arches, and seventy years before his time Champlain stated that there was only one but that one big enough for a ship to sail through; in still earlier days Indian legends describe its connection with the shore.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Let us at this stage look lightly at some of the geographical and associated conditions as we pass slowly up the St. Lawrence from its mouth, and try to see what manner of region this is which has witnessed so much of romance and has brought together and kept together the new and the old—the Europe of three centuries ago and the America of to-day. From Percé and its memories of a naval battle in 1776, when two American ships were sunk, we pass along a shore devoted with undying allegiance to codfish, and possessing at Mont Ste. Anne one of the finest scenic views in eastern Canada. At Gaspé, the chief place in the Peninsula—the farthest point of Quebec on the south shore of the St. Lawrence—there are abundant salmon and fruitful inland fields. Here Cartier once landed, took possession of vast unknown regions for the King of France and erected a cross thirty feet high which flew the fleur-de-lis, also, as a mark of ownership; near here, Admiral Kirke defeated a large French fleet. Then comes Cape Gaspé with its towering rampart of sandstone, nearly 700 feet high, and many succeeding miles of rocky walls and lofty cliffs. Near Cape Chatte, another English and French naval fight took place, and near here, also, runs into the St. Lawrence the Matane River, famous for its trout and salmon, while the great river itself stretches thirty-five miles across to its northern shores.
DECK SPORTS
Playing cricket on the deck of the “Empress of Ireland.” One of the favorite amusements of the male passengers. The broad decks and steadiness of the great liner made the game possible on all except the very rough days.