St. Lawrence Seaway

Front:
USA 20c 1959-1984 Saint Lawrence Seaway HASSENA JUN 26 1984 13662

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When the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed in 1959, it climaxed five years of construction for both the United States and Canada. In addition to opening the Great Lakes to oceangoing vessels, the St. Lawrence Seaway also brought about a tremendous increase in hydro- electric power. To give the channel a depth which was nowhere less than twenty-seven feet, it was necessary to repair, build or dredge most of the sections of the long waterway. In some areas, the ship channel already had a minimum depth of thirty-two feet ... but unfortu- nately, in others the depth was only fourteen feet. This shallow area — from Montreal to Prescott – was the bottleneck of the entire waterway. However, when finished, engineers and construction workers from both Canada and the United States achieved remarkable re- sults -- a deep waterway that opened the far reaches of Lake Superior and all the other Great Lakes to the Atlan- tic. In 1984, the United States and Canada each issued stamps to honor the twenty-fifth anniversary of the St. Lawrence Seaway. No. 84-31 ©1984 The Maximum Card Collection A Division of Unicover Corporation • Cheyenne, WY 82008-0007 Original painting by Tom Bjarnason.