Oh-Oh… It’s Monday! Did you know…
* 1959 – Queen Elizabeth II officially opens 318 km long St. Lawrence Seaway with US President Eisenhower. (The St Lawrence Seaway (Great Lakes Waterway) is the system of locks, canals, and channels linking the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence River with the Atlantic Ocean. The construction of progressively larger canals along the St Lawrence River began as early as 1783. By 1900, a complete network of shallow draft canals allowed uninterrupted navigation from Lake Superior to Montréal.
The waterway, some 3,700 km long from Île d’Anticosti to the head of Lake Superior, permits vessels of up to 225.5 m long, 23.8 m wide and a maximum draft (i.e., the distance between the top of the water and the bottom of the ship) of 8.1 m to sail from Montréal to Duluth, Minnesota, on Lake Superior. The majority of the cargo moving through the Seaway is iron ore, coal and other mine products, followed by agricultural goods, other bulk cargo (e.g., petroleum products and cement) and finished goods (e.g., iron and steel). Approximately 44 million tons of cargo moves through the Seaway annually, in contrast with the annual average of about 11 million tons in the 1950s.
Between 1913 and 1932, the Welland Canal (between Lakes Erie and Ontario) was rebuilt, but the United States was reluctant to enter a larger scheme, that is, to rebuild the Montréal–Lake Ontario channels. A threat by the Canadian government in 1951 to build a seaway entirely within Canadian territory resulted in a final agreement in 1954. Construction on the St Lawrence Seaway and Power Project began on 10 August 1954. In addition to the building of seven locks and deepening navigation channels to a depth of 8.2 m, the project also included the construction of the 2,090 megawatts Moses-Saunders Powerhouse near Cornwall, Ontario. The Seaway was opened to commercial traffic 25 April 1959. The official opening on 26 June 1959 was attended by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Queen Elizabeth II.) Continue reading “John’s Believe It Or Not… June 26th”
Fiora Books by John Fioravanti 