Gulf of St. Lawrence | |
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French: Golfe du Saint-Laurent | |
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![]() Bathymetry of the Gulf of St. Lawrence | |
Coordinates | 48°36′N61°24′W / 48.600°N 61.400°W |
Type | Gulf |
Basin countries | Canada Saint Pierre and Miquelon (France) |
Surface area | 226,000 km2 (87,000 sq mi) [2] |
Average depth | 152 m (499 ft) [2] |
Max. depth | 530 m (1,740 ft) [2] |
Water volume | 34,500 km3 (8,300 cu mi) [2] |
The Gulf of St. Lawrence fringes the shores of the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada, plus the islands Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, possessions of France, in North America. [3] [4]
The Gulf of St. Lawrence connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence River. [5] [6] [7]
The Gulf of St. Lawrence is bounded on the north by the Labrador Peninsula and Quebec, on the east by Saint-Pierre and Newfoundland, on the south by the Nova Scotia peninsula and Cape Breton Island, and on the west by the Gaspé Peninsula, New Brunswick, and Quebec. The Gulf of St. Lawrence contains numerous islands, including Anticosti, Prince Edward, Saint Pierre, Cape Breton, Miquelon-Langlade, and the Îles-de-la-Madeleine archipelago.
Half of Canada's ten provinces adjoin the Gulf: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Quebec.
There is no consensus on the demarcation of the St Lawrence River from the Gulf, nor whether it is hydrographically a gulf or an estuary. [8] [9] [10]
According to Commission of Toponymy Quebec, the St. Lawrence River becomes the gulf at Pointe des Monts on the Côte-Nord and Matane Bas-Saint-Laurent or Sainte-Anne-des-Monts La Haute-Gaspésie, the Estuary is upstream, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, much wider, downstream. [11] [12]
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the gulf's extent as follows: [13]
At Baie-Trinité, the Pointe-des-Monts Lighthouse, a National historic site of Canada, was built in 1829-1830 on a point that geographers throughout history, since as early as Samuel de Champlain (1567-1655), have classified as the demarcation point between the St. Lawrence River and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. [15] [16]
Fisheries and Oceans Canada's "Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence planning area" covers most of the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence bioregion, an area with some of the warmest surface waters in Atlantic Canada during summer and the largest amount of sea ice during winter. The planning area is approximately 240,000 km². [4]
Besides the St. Lawrence itself, significant rivers emptying into the Gulf of St. Lawrence include the Miramichi, Natashquan, Romaine, Restigouche, Margaree, Humber and Mingan.
Branches of the Gulf include Chaleur Bay, Fortune Bay, Miramichi Bay, St. George's Bay, Bay St. George, Bay of Islands, and the Northumberland Strait.
Around Anticosti Island and to flow into the Atlantic Ocean, the waters of the Gulf take the following straits:
The Laurentian Channel is a feature of the floor of the Gulf that was formed during previous ice ages, when the Continental Shelf was eroded by the St. Lawrence River during the periods when the sea level plunged. The Laurentian Channel is about 290 m (950 ft) deep and about 1,250 km (780 mi) long from the Continental Shelf to the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. Deep waters with temperatures between 2 and 6.5 °C (36 and 44 °F) enter the Gulf at the continental slope and are slowly advected up the channel by estuariane circulation. [24] Over the 20th century, the bottom waters of the end of the channel (i.e. in the St. Lawrence estuary) have become hypoxic. [25]
The gulf has provided a historically important marine fishery for various First Nations that have lived on its shores for millennia and used its waters for transportation. [26] [27] [28] [ citation needed ]
The first documented voyage by a European in its waters was by the French explorer Jacques Cartier in the year 1534. Cartier named the shores of the St. Lawrence River "The Country of Canadas", after an indigenous word meaning "village" or "settlement", thus naming the world's second largest country. [29]
Basque whalers from Saint-Jean-de-Luz sailed into the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1530 and began whaling at Red Bay. [30] They established their base on the Strait of Belle Isle [14] and worked closely with the Iroquois in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In 1579 the English government closed all English ports to Spanish oil imports. As a result, a third of Basque whale oil could not be sold. Basque whaling collapsed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and never recovered.
Thirteen species of cetaceans inhabit the estuary and gulf of the St. Lawrence River: [31]
In winter, large quantities of ice form in the St. Lawrence River. Ice formation begins in December between Montreal and Quebec City. The prevailing winds and currents push this ice towards the estuary, generally reaching east of Les Méchins around the end of December. Ice covers the entire gulf in January and February. [32]
Ice aids in navigation, preventing the formation of waves and therefore spray, thus having the advantage of preventing the icing process of ships. [32]
Almost all of Quebec's ports are located along the St. Lawrence River seaway, from its source to its gulf, to the Atlantic Ocean. There are dozens and dozens of shelters, harbors, natural ports, large and small along the gulf up to the source of the St. Lawrence River, we can add village or individual wharf, without forgetting the large international maritime transport ports. In its annual report on maritime traffic in Canada, the Federal Bureau of Statistics gives detailed annual statistics for the years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 [33] [34]
Ports of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the Côte-Nord Shore: Blanc-Sablon, Harrington Harbor, Natashquan, Havre-Saint-Pierre, Mingan, Port-Menier (Anticosti Island), Cap-aux-Meules (Îles-de-la -Madeleine). [33]
Western Honguedo Strait Coral Conservation Area, create following the signing of the Canada–Quebec Collaborative Agreement to Establish a Network of Marine Protected Areas in Quebec in March 2018. [35] [36]
St. Paul Island in Nova Scotia off the northeastern tip of Cape Breton Island, is known as the "Graveyard of the Gulf" because of its many shipwrecks. [37] Access to this island is controlled by the Canadian Coast Guard. [38]
In 1919 the first Migratory Bird Sanctuaries (MBS) in Canada were established under the Migratory Birds Convention Act on Bonaventure Island, on the Bird Rocks of the Magdalen Islands, and on the Percé Rock. These migratory bird sanctuaries are administered by the Canadian Wildlife Service. [39]
The Federal Government of Canada manages 37 National Parks of Canada, [40] overview of the parks touching the Gulf of St. Lawrence: Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve, in Côte-Nord, Forillon National Park on the eastern tip of the Gaspé Peninsula, Prince Edward Island National Park on the northern shore of the island, Kouchibouguac National Park on the northeastern coast of New Brunswick, Cape Breton Highlands National Park on the northern tip of Cape Breton Island, Gros Morne National Park on the west coast of Newfoundland. [40] [41]
In Quebec, since March 31, 2024, the network of protected areas [42] [43] extends over 274,431 km2 and is established as follows:
The five provinces bordering the Gulf of St. Lawrence have several provincial parks with protected coasts.[ citation needed ]
This lighthouse is located in Baie-Trinité, in the hamlet of Pointe-des-Monts; it was classified as a monument and historic site on September 8, 1965.
A River, Estuaries, a Gulf: The Great Hydrographic Divisions of the St. Lawrence
The area represents one of the largest and most productive estuarine/marine ecosystems in Canada and in the world.
the Gulf must be considered a complete and coherent systern: for example, what happens in the Gaspé current cannot be completely isolated from the phenomena that occur elsewhere. The degree of interdependence of the various areas remains to be explored.
. . . can be divided into three broad sections: the freshwater river, which extends from Lake Ontario to just outside the city of Quebec; the St. Lawrence estuary, which extends from Quebec to Anticosti Island; and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which leads into the Atlantic Ocean
According to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, a line from the mouth of Rivière St-Jean on the north shore past the western tip of Île d'Anticosti to Cap des Rosiers on Gaspé marks the end of the river and the beginning of the gulf.
In the absence of decisive, first-hand documents, historians and cartographers can only assert probabilities.
The Gulf of St. Lawrence contains a wide range of hydrodynamic conditions including seasonal ice cover, polynyas, fronts, gyres, freshwater input and influences, and large seasonal variations in vertical stratification.
Sixteenth-century cartographers, historians and memorialists were most often inspired by the Spanish and Italian translations of the Brief récit, and not by the original French published in 1545 to impose the toponym Gulf of St. Lawrence
These points serve as a boundary between the Estuary of the St. Lawrence River upstream and the much wider Gulf of St. Lawrence downstream
Limits of Oceans and Seas
In addition to Grande Bay, this arm of the sea had notably borne the names of Friar Lewis, on maps from 1505, then Gulf of Chasteaulx, Charles Streights and Passage du Nord which a cartographer describes as "subject to Glaces" later in the 16th and during the 17th century.
Built on a rocky outcrop that forms an islet at high tide, the lighthouse bears witness to a time when navigation in the Gulf of St. Lawrence was perilous.
The first lighthouse, completed in 1830, had walls six feet thick at the base, tapering to two feet at the lantern deck.20
... covers the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence River, from Cap Whittle (50°11'N, 60°07'W) to Pointe des Monts (49°19'N, 67°23'W), as well as the north shore of Anticosti Island.
The Commission de géographie du Québec, now the Commission de toponymie, adopted this toponym in 1934 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Jacques Cartier in New France.
St. Paul Island presents the only danger in the Cabot strait. Mariners are advised to navigate with caution during periods of reduced visibility.
From George Bay to Chedabucto Bay
The Strait is relatively narrow, varying in width from 800 m to 2,000 m (2,600 to 6,600 ft.), although it is most commonly 1,600 m (1 mile) wide throughout the 27 km (17 mi.) length.
Although blocked in the 1950's by the Canso Causeway, Canso Strait could potentially be a transport pathway for the spread of Malpeque Disease
The mile long eighty foot wide man-made causeway is known as the deepest in the world
We must manage the Gulf fishery as a biological reality, not as a battlefield for provincial ambitions
The Aboriginal people were the first to benefit from the abundant resources of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence: water, game, fish and marine mammals.
At the time of contact with the first Europeans, the St. Lawrence Iroquoians occupied a territory that extended from the mouth of Lake Ontario to the Cap Tourmente area, near Quebec City, with a southward extension to the northern tip of Lake Champlain, as well as seasonal extensions into the estuary and the gulf of St. Lawrence. D
The different species of seals and whales are all mammal species. © GREMM
If you consider that both water and air masses literally hug the ground and follow all its contours and surfaces, it's easy to understand just how much variety there can be in wind and sea conditions.
Ports of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the Côte-Nord Shore: Blanc-Sablon, Harrington Harbor, Natashquan, Havre-Saint-Pierre, Mingan, Port-Menier (Anticosti Island), Cap-aux-Meules (Îles-de-la -Madeleine)
Marine transportation Data and statistics Monthly and annual statistics, Monthly and Annual
High concentrations of these soft corals create habitat with complex structures that provide refuge, feeding, and rearing areas for many marine species, thus supporting greater biodiversity.
They provide the complex habitat structure that is important to invertebrates, fish and other deep sea life. High-complexity sponge reefs are associated with a greater abundance and diversity of species.
As I stepped ashore onto a blanket-size piece of sand, I realized I was probably trespassing; landing on the island requires an official permit from the Canadian coast guard.
There are 37 national parks and 11 national park reserves in Canada that represent 31 of Canada's 39 terrestrial natural regions and protect approximately 343,377 square kilometers of lands in Canada.
National Parks of Canada, search by province or territory
Protected areas are also recognized as an essential tool for adaptation to climate change. In particular, they allow carbon to be stored.
Protected areas register database, 2024 Ministry of Environment and Ecological reference framework, 2018 adapted
The Register of Protected Areas in Quebec constitutes a unique and integrated reference for Quebec in terms of protected areas, both within the meaning of the Natural Heritage Conservation Act and the recommendations of the International Union for Conservation of Nature ( IUCN).