The desire to access the interior of the North American continent with ocean-going vessels pre-dates European settlement.
In 1689 François Dollier de Casson, a Sulpician priest, was the first to start digging to circumvent the Lachine Rapids.
Inter-governmental discussions for the "St. Lawrence Waterway Project" dated back as far as the 1890s. Efforts culminated
with the 1959 opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway as "the world's longest inland deep draft marine highway", forever changing
Quebec's geographic, economic, and political landscapes.
With a focus on both geography and biography, this tale will be told through the diverse and driven personalities who worked to
reshape the rivers and lakes of Quebec and beyond for navigation.
After a career in financial services Mark Gallop, a Québec Genealogical eSociety member, now devotes his time to
historical research, writing, and lecturing. He is a Trustee of Mount Royal Cemetery, a Governor of the Royal Canadian
Geographical Society, and a past President of the Atwater Library. He divides his time between New Brunswick and Quebec.
Primary geographic areas of interest in Quebec are Montreal (surnames: Gallop, Willis, Castle, Herdman) and the
St. Francis Valley of the Eastern Townships (surnames: Dickson, Stevens,Trenholm, Lyster, Anderson, Brown, Smillie).
