In April 2023, I was blessed to take a deep dive into the history, geography, geology and culture of the far northeast corner of America,  the Canadian Maritimes and the St. Lawrence River and Seaway. Con su permisio, as they say in Spanish, I would like to share with you some of what I learned in these blog posts over the next couple of months. Hope you benefit and enjoy!

“The humble, hard-working beaver is honored on the Canadian nickel and for good reason. The beaver is an animal that was the architect of the nation of Canada,” explained David, our ship’s history presenter. “It was beaver fur that first drove exploration and exploitation.” 

“The beaver is not leading-man material,” David quipped,” but is well adapted to its aquatic life. Its engineering acumen is what makes it outstanding. Its behavior comes from its genes; they are genetically programmed to build. Their ability to do it well develops over time and with practice. The longest known beaver dam is in Northern Canada and is over a mile long.” 

Beavers are revered in Canada for a different reason. So what made it such a star? Its FUR! Fur trading was a big part of the economy since the first white explorers arrived. Samuel Champlain established a fur trading post in what became Quebec City in 1608. There were other fur-bearing animals but beaver were the most plentiful, were easy to find and catch. The First Nations were happy to trade beaver furs for the white man’s goods. Beaver fur was the currency of the frontier. As the beaver were trapped out, people (forts, towns) moved west with them. By the 1850s, the west was “beavered out” clear to the Rocky Mountains. 

Today it’s hard to realize the great demand for beaver fur. Fashion drove the industry in the early 1800s: beaver hats were “the thing.” Luckily for the beaver, by the 1850s fashion was changing. Queen Victoria’s consort, Prince Albert, wore a silk top hat and quickly beaver hats were out. The beaver’s work was done; Canada was established. 

By 1867, Canada was a nation built in many ways upon the humble beaver. To honor this “founding father,” the beaver is featured on the Canadian nickel. 

In April 2023, I was blessed to take a deep dive into the history, geography, geology and culture of the far northeast corner of America,  the Canadian Maritimes and the St. Lawrence River and Seaway. Con su permisio, as they say in Spanish, I would like to share with you some of what I learned in these blog posts over the next couple of months. Hope you benefit and enjoy!

By definition, an island in the St. Lawrence River & 1000 Islands area must meet these criteria: have at least one tree and at least one square foot above water year round. And actually, there are 1864 islands comprising the 1000 Islands area. These islands are mostly granite and the trees mostly deciduous ones. I spotted houses built on some TEENY rocky spots in the water….. accessible only by boat, obviously. No tides affect this area but due to the outflow from Lake Erie, the water can rise 3-4 feet from year to year. Called “Millionaires Row,” this area in the 1870s was the mecca for wealthy folks to build build their summer “cottages”……. mansions of 100+ rooms! President U.S. Grant visited a friend there one summer and the media blasted it well, bringing in new millionaires. In the day, these residents had 100+ foot long yachts with gleaming teak decks and built enormous boat houses for these boats.This area is more than a summering spot for the wealthy. The broad expanse of water in this area (and the many islands) resulted from the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway. After years of yammering and problem solving between Canada and New York, construction of the seaway began in 1954 and was completed in 1959. Why was this important? The St. Lawrence River was THE artery into the heart of the North America continent and if it could be made navigable to the Great Lakes, the possibilities were endless.  

The saddest story from human history standpoint was the submerging of nine villages, some Canadian and some American.  Two towns/villages were relocated: Iroquois and Morrisburg.  Nine were completely submerged: Aultsville, Farran’s Point, Dickenson’s Landing, Wales, Moulinette, Mille Roche, Woodlands, Santa Cruz and Maple Grove. Of course people shed tears, grumbled and filed lawsuits but in the end their towns and homes were relocated “for the greater benefit of the nations.” There is a Lost Villages Historical Society, founded in 1977, headquartered in Ault Park, near Long Sault, Ontario. Ten restored historic structures from Moulinette have been relocated there.  If your ancestors lived in one of these Lost Villages, do contact this society:  16361 Fran LaFlamme Drive, Long Sault, Ontario, K0C 1P0.  And perhaps watch the YouTube video, “No Road Home.”   

This website has links to more history of each village. 

Inundation Day, June 26, 1959, a ceremony was held in Montreal. Queen Elizabeth, President Eisenhauer and Prime Minister Diefenbaker were the speakers “affirming the grandeur of the project and all the good it meant to both Canada and the United States.” 

In April 2023, I was blessed to take a deep dive into the history, geography, geology and culture of the far northeast corner of America,  the Canadian Maritimes and the St. Lawrence River and Seaway. Con su permisio, as they say in Spanish, I would like to share with you some of what I learned in these blog posts over the next couple of months. Hope you benefit and enjoy!

Lighthouses. Who does not like lighthouses? How many of you have braved the 100-spiral-open-metal stairs to climb to the top of a lighthouse? (And remember than in days of yore, the lighthouse keepers would climb those stairs at least twice a day carrying fuel for the fire………. and there were women lighthouse keepers too, going up those stairs in their long dresses.)

Lighthouses are beautiful and romantic and have been featured in a million books and movies. “But what, really, is a lighthouse for?” asked David, our experience instructor on the ship. He continued, “A lighthouse is a navigation aid, surely not just by a light, but by a point to steer by. The lighthouse was the GPS of the 1800s. The lighthouse was a landmark visible at sea to enable recognition to ships of where they were. Anciently, shore fires wee used before lighthouses.” ****

“Imagine the coast of North America in the late 1800s. It was a broad expanse of rocky shores, forested wilderness, populated by the First Nations and then by lumbermen and fisherman,” David taught us. “In the mid-1800s there were hundreds of vessels from a dozen nations in North Atlantic waters for by water was the easiest mode of transport and transportation  for both cargo and passengers. Today, modern ships navigate by GPS and other automated systems to keep safe on the water, but there were only lighthouses in the 1800s.” 

“In the 1800s, sailing captains had only crude maps and a compass and sailors hoped for a captain skilled in these tools. Accidents occurred constantly….capsizing, beaching, grounding and collisions. The lighthouse was the technology of the day, built to make travel safer for the ships and people on the waters.” 

***  On my Mississippi River trip in 2022, due to an extremely low river, we could not moor at Vicksburg but were diverted south to a hastily-extended concrete fishing access. Being up in the pre-dawn dark, I knew we passed Vicksburg and shortly in the pitch black darkness, I spotted a small, flickering light on the shore. As the ship’s floodlight zoomed in on that signal light, I could see that it was a beach fire! Lighted purposefully to guide us to where we could moor! So old time methods were still necessary in 2022!

In April 2023, I was blessed to take a deep dive into the history, geography, geology and culture of the far northeast corner of America,  the Canadian Maritimes and the St. Lawrence River and Seaway. Con su permisio, as they say in Spanish, I would like to share with you some of what I learned in these blog posts over the next couple of months. Hope you benefit and enjoy!

Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, has a 400-year history of cod fishing. Today, cod is important for fish-and-chips on both sides of the Atlantic. “Yesterday” these fish could weigh up to 200 pounds and now they’re usually four-to-five pounds (so explained the guide). 

“Yesterday” there were literally millions of these fish in the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In 1497, John Cabot’s sailors wrote home to Italy that there “were to may fish we could take them up by the baskets full.” Another English report: “We could hardly row a boat between them.” Jacque Cartier in 1524 echoed those sentiments and soon the word spread all over Europe, especially to Catholic countries.

Good Catholics in those days did not eat meat on Fridays or on the many special holy days, but they could eat fish. The fishing frenzy was on.

Besides being so abundant, cod live in shallow waters, near the bottom, and are easily fished from small dories with hand-held lines. It was easy to make a living as a cod fisherman. Cod are not an oily fish, so they would dry easily. Salted and spread upon the rocks to dry, salted cod would keep up to two years and fueled many long voyages. 

People of that day felt surely that the supply was inexhaustible. But as the technology for catching and processing cod improved, the supply was nearly exhausted. By 1992, the Canadian had closed down cod fishing (except for recreation). 

Today most of our cod comes from Iceland.

Who remembers fish sticks back in 1958?? They were cod and still are, I believe.