THE ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY
WHILE a sharp summer thunderstorm crackled across the St. Lawrence Valley, crowds of raincoated tourists scrambled to the crest of a high dirt dike near Cornwall. Ont. one morning last week and peered through the mist toward a stubby earthen dam 2½miles away. At 7:55 a warning rocket arched overhead, and a voice on a loudspeaker began a countdown. An engineer in a timbered bunker pressed a button; from the explosive-mined dam a yellow curtain of debris belched upward toward the thunderheads. Deliberately, the blasted dam crumbled, and muddy water poured through, first in a thick stream, then in a torrent.
Thus on Dominion Day, the 91st anniversary of Canada's confederation, the big neighbors of North America thunderously marked completion of the major works in the building of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project (see color pages). For three days the unstopped waters of the St. Lawrence rushed into the basin above the international St. Lawrence Power Dam, and on July 4, Independence Day for Canada's U.S. partner in the project, the newborn lake reached its predicted shore line. Turbines in the power dam turned in test runs, and the U.S. Coast Guard buoy tender Maple voyaged through the new lake, planting a trail of red and black buoys to mark the way for 80 ships waiting to follow—and for the thousands to come after the deep seaway's opening next April.
The key to the seaway's significance lies in a single figure: 27 ft. When the builders complete a channel that deep, 80% of the world's cargo ships will be able to steam—with at least a few inches of water under their keels—into any port along the Great Lakes' 8.300-mile shore line. Cities in the great Midwest of the U.S. will become ocean-going ports. Chicago will be linked to Calcutta, Duluth to Antwerp, Toronto to Brisbane. Detroit's Chrysler Corp. will be able to ship a Plymouth sedan to Oslo for $45 less than the cost of the rail-ocean haul through New York. Wheat will move from Fort William, Ont. to Rotterdam at a saving of up to 15¢ per bu.
Already the seaway's impact has been felt far and wide:
¶ The Dutch-owned Oranje Line this week launches the Princess Margriet, designed to carry 110 passengers and mixed cargo into the Great Lakes.
¶ Industries using cheap St. Lawrence power are going up to provide 2,000 new jobs in Massena. N.Y.
¶ Since seaway construction started in 1954, Cook County (Chicago) Congressmen have twice voted unanimously to extend the tariff-chopping Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act.
The Magnificent River. The St. Lawrence is one of the world's great rivers. It drains an area larger than Great Britain and France, carries to the sea more water than the Seine, the Danube and the Thames combined. Filtered through the five Great Lakes, its steel blue waters normally run free of silt. The stages of the river rarely vary more than 7 ft., and its maximum now is only twice its minimum —bonus factors for hydroelectric development. Yet power engineers surveyed its upper reaches for half a century in hungry frustration; for even longer, navigators eyed it as a barrier and an opportunity.