French-Canadian waterways have been important in the industry, commerce, and general economy of the region, both historically as well as today. Let’s find out more about these waterways, and how they may be used to help produce income for Quebec, as well as all Canadians, into the future.
The original inhabitants of the area known today as Quebec were what Canadians refer to as First Nations, of whom Iroquoian tribes were the most dominant, especially in the southern parts of Quebec, along the St. Lawrence River and Seaway. These Iroquoian Indians lived a rather settled life compared to the more nomadic tribes, including the Algonquians and the Inuit farther north, planting crops in the fertile river valley surrounding the St. Lawrence River, and fishing in that waterway, until they were pushed off their land by the later European settlers.
The area that became Quebec was settled originally along the St. Lawrence River by French settlers, denoting the importance that this river valley had on the settlement and development of the province known today as Quebec. The original method of settling the land was through what was known as the signeurial system, or long lot pattern, where the French government granted individuals pieces of land that were quite narrow to begin with, and extended for a long distance, starting with land along the St. Lawrence River. These individuals then took this land and subdivided it into many smaller long and narrow pieces of land, called rotures, which were each given to individual peasant farmers, who settled that narrow strip of land, farming it, and putting his homestead on that piece of long, narrow land, at one end, along with all the other settlers, in which case the houses, if looked at from the air, were all lined up in a row, in linear fashion, making for quite a different landscape than that found in land in the United States that was settled in square and rectangular lots. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the purpose behind settling land in this way was to put neighbors within close proximity of each other, in order to create a sense of community. This signeurial system was eventually abolished in 1854.
The first French settlements in North America, besides the area that was known as Arcadia, were along the valley that surrounded the St. Lawrence River, through the signeurial system. The city of Quebec, the capital of what became the province of Quebec, was founded by Champlain, the same person for whom Lake Champlain was named, in 1608, meaning that is was founded even before the Plymouth colony in present-day Massachusetts. After that Trois-Rivieres was founded in 1634, and a Montreal Island settlement in 1642, a settlement that would become the second-largest French-speaking city in the world, behind Paris. In the earliest days of French settlement, the waterways, with the St. Lawrence River at the forefront, became the chief mode of getting the furs, and later the food products from the farmlands, to the distant markets. Fur trade, through a mercantilist economic system, was the main economic activity in this region until the time of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and remained a major component of the economy until 1812, when other sectors of the economy were developed to replace the fur trade, such as selling the wheat from the farmland and harvesting the timber from the vast northern forests, in which case the waterways were needed to get those goods to other markets. The latter half of the eighteenth century, all the way to the end of World War II in 1945, marked the rise of capitalism and industrialization in Quebec. In all these periods, the waterways of Quebec played a crucial role, including getting goods to other markets, the settlement of good farmland around the waterways, the development of urbanized areas, as well as the industrialization of those urbanized areas – this could not have happened without the good waterways that were present (find out more about the St. Lawrence River system).
Montreal became an early center for trade and commerce, because of its location with easy access to the sea and to the interior of the North American continent. The original settlement and, today, where the majority of the population of Quebec live, is in the St. Lawrence Lowlands, In fact, the majority of Quebec’s arable land, used for farming purposes, such as growing grains, is in this St. Lawrence Lowlands region, since most of the territory of the province of Quebec is at a higher elevation, and exists as part of the Canadian Shield, a vast area that is quite rugged, with thousands of lakes, and quite incapable of supporting agricultural purposes without a lot of work to ready the land for those purposes. This leaves the area around the waterways to be the chief areas of settlement, historically speaking. Of course, this means not only the lowlands area around the St. Lawrence River and Seaway, but also some of the lands of the Estries, or the Eastern Townships, in the valleys between the mountains at the northern end of the Appalachian Mountain chain that extends all the way up into Quebec, but also the area in the Saguenay Valley and Lac Saint-Jean (Lake St. John) north of Quebec City.
The waterways in Quebec today are not only the location where a majority of Quebec’s population lives, and where the majority of the agriculture takes place, but is also important in that they can be used for shipping goods from the Atlantic Ocean to the interior of the continent, in which the city of Montreal is one of the largest inland ports in the world. Besides that, the ability to get the lumber from the vast forests in Quebec’s part of the Canadian Shield is maximized by having waterways with which to move the timber to mills in the southern parts of the province so that is can be made into all sorts of wood products, and to build homes. Montreal also serves as a port to get the large amount of Quebec’s manufactured goods to world markets in other parts of the world, something that is needed in an era of global trade and business.
There is also the tourism industry, centered in Montreal and Quebec City, on the St. Lawrence River. Of course, the river itself, as beautiful as it is to look at, is also a big motivator at drawing tourists from Quebec itself, from other parts of Canada, from the United States to its south, as well as the rest of the world.
How might the rivers and waterways in Quebec be used to help produce income for Canadians in the future? They can continue to be used as a means to ship goods from Quebec to other markets, including the goods that are still manufactured in the urban centers, the food products that are grown in the good agricultural land that surrounds these waterways, especially the St. Lawrence River, as well as shipping the timber from the vast northern forests, as lumber, to the markets along the Atlantic, for the making of wood products, furniture, and the building of homes. The waterways can also be used to draw in tourists from other parts of North America and the world, helping to draw in tourist dollars that can help to provide income for Canadians. As for helping provide income for other Canadians in other inland provinces in Canada, the waterways of Quebec can help to also get the goods from other parts of Canada to other markets throughout the world, including their manufactured goods, agricultural food products, and timber, using the French Canadian waterways as a means to get those goods to the Atlantic Ocean, and from there, the world.
