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National Geographic : 1950 Sep
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The National Geographic M\agazine Author George Long (Left) Interviews Officers of the North Shore in Quebec St. Lawrence steamers, going where railroads and highways are lacking, serve isolated communities from Montreal to Newfoundland. To habitants and Indians they carry mail, provisions, even livestock. Possibly a dozen passengers make the voyage. In a desolate cove one of these young ladies was lowered over the side into her father's rowboat. Customs building dome, Chateau Frontenac tower, and Laval University steeple puncture the Quebec skyline (pages 329, 345). western wilderness, trading with the Indians, each year sent a king's ransom in cold-bred furs into river settlements. Ships, waiting at Quebec, carried this wealth to Europe. When French Canada became British, shrewd Scots took over the trade. When it waned, timber from virgin forests took its place. Island-sized rafts, acres big, were floated down the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers to be broken up for export in Quebec. Ocean Ships 1,000 Miles Inland As Canada opened her prairie Provinces, timber gave way to wheat. By Great Lakes and great river the golden grain moved-still moves-eastward to world markets. Today the midwest passage of explorer and voyageur is the open-season gateway to the world for all of Canada between the Rockies and the Maritime Provinces. Freighters, built to fit upper river canals, connect ports on the Great Lakes with Montreal (page 330). Following the Cartier route 1.000 miles in land, salt-water ships trade world cargoes for the products of Canadian farms, forests, and factories. Despite its winter hibernation, the St. Lawrence waterway carries nearly one third of Canada's foreign trade. Several thousand miles traveled up and down this magnificent waterway unfolded for me a panorama of infinite variety. Man challenged the river with his own con trasts-sleepy hamlets and bustling cities, heavy industry and handicrafts, fishing schooners bobbing beside ocean liners, French Quebec and British Ontario, oxcarts and trac tors, humble churches and splendid cathedrals. A colorful cast of characters-monks, Mounties, nuns, soldiers, Indians, priests, trappers, fishermen, farmers, lumberjacks, 324 ift
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