Long Sault

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Long Sault was a rapid in the St. Lawrence River west of Cornwall.

The Long Sault created a navigation barrier along the river for much of its history, necessitating the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the 1950s as the size of ships and the volume of shipping traffic along the river began to exceed the capacity of the area's canal locks.

The construction, in part, required the flooding of a large swath of land near the rapids, both to facilitate a hydroelectric dam and to make the rapids area more navigable. The flooded region includes Ontario's Lost Villages.

The town of Long Sault, Ontario and the Long Sault Parkway both take their name from the rapids.