THE SITE IS THE CANAL LACHINE at the Pont-des-Seigneurs & l'Ecluse Saint Gabriel. A bit of background: The Canal Lachine, after it opened in 1825, transformed the St. Lawrence River from a natural waterway into a hybrid technical and natural infrastructure. Before 1821 the site of this hybridization was the Lachine Rapids. It stretched fourteen kilometers, dropped over fourteen meters and for over two hundred years blocked the continuous transit of ships traveling from the Atlantic Ocean up the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes and back. Prior to the transformation of the rapids into a canal, all cargo had to be transferred from the vessels to ground transportation at one end of the rapids, brought over the land before being reloaded onto new ships on the smoother surface above or below the rapids. The city of Montreal, the former industrial and economic centre of the nation, owes its history to this transit obstacle. After 1825, the four years of construction to transform the rapids into a neat plumbing system enabled the city to expand and extend outwards into the young Dominion and further across the Atlantic Oceans in ways previously not possible without the control over the waterways.
No comments:
Post a Comment