Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
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THE FIRST DESCRIPTION
of the Gulf of St. Lawrence was Jacques Cartier's chronicle of his 1534 and 1535 voy-
ages into the gulf and river, which bear the same name. He writes in wonder of the Bird Rocks, barren, high-
sided islets at the center of the Gulf, “completely covered with birds, which nest there, as a field is covered with
grass.” The birds were gannets, murres, and the now extinct great auks. On nearby Brion Island, he marvels at
his first encounter with walruses, which he colorfully describes as “great beasts, like large oxen, which have two
tusks in their jaw like elephant's tusks and swim about in the water.”
During these two voyages, Cartier explored the many arms of the Gulf, which the 20th-century natural histor-
ian Wayland Drew has aptly described as being roughly starfish-shaped. The longest arm reaches into the interi-
or of the continent through the St. Lawrence River. A second arm points north toward Labrador through the
Strait of Belle Isle. A shorter arm curls under the Gaspé Peninsula to create the Baie des Chaleurs, and another
long arm cradles the crescent of Prince Edward Island to become the Northumberland Strait. Finally, a fifth arm
reaches toward the open Atlantic through the Cabot Strait, between Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island.
The Gulf of St. Lawrence is a place of contradictions: in summer it boasts the warmest waters north of the
Carolinas, but in winter it is covered with ice for three months. The gulf is also difficult to define as an oceano-
graphic entity. Oceanographers have pondered whether it acts more like an inland sea or like a giant estuary; in
fact, it appears to be a bit of both. On the one hand, it is a huge estuary—a transition zone where freshwater and
tidewater meet and mix and which exhibits some characteristics of the land-based world of freshwater and some
of the salt waters of the marine zone. On the other hand, the gulf is a semi-enclosed inland sea, which opens to
the North Atlantic through the Cabot Strait and Strait of Belle Isle, making it subject to tidal, oceanic influence.
