ST. LAWRENCE RIVER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 August 1939, Page 11

ST. LAWRENCE RIVER

LARGE INLAND WATERWAY. RAPID PASSAGES POSSIBLE. QUEBEC. The safety of the St Lawrence River for navigation purposes is indicated by the rapid passage in these waters of the R.M.S. Empress of Australia, bearing their Majesties. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Canada after i having been delayed two days by fog and ice in the North Atlantic. The St Lawrence River is one of the world's largest inland routes for ocean vessels and extends from the Strait of Belle Isle to this city for a distance of 878 miles for vessels of the size of the Empress. Ocean-going vessels of a smaller size are able to proceed up the river as far as the city of Montreal and some proceed through the canals and kikes as far as Fort William and Port Arthur in Central Canada. The St Lawrence River route is today one of the world's best protected navigation routes as a result of work recently completed by the Canadian Hydrographic Service of the Canadian Government. Safe passage is provided by a series of 34 coastal and harbour charts, and these are inseparably linked with other aids to navigation such as lighthouses and lightships, buoys and beacons, fog alarm and storm warning signal stations, and the latest acquisitions, radio beacons and wireless direction finding equipment. Completion of the charting of the steamship route along the north shore in 1923 marked another milestone in Canadian navigation.

Mammoth ocean liners of as much as 42,000 tons and 33 feet draught now plough confidently through the St Lawrence at a speed undreamed of in earlier times.