In 1954, the United States and Canada jointly embarked on a massive engineering project that involved the creation of a 600-km-long navigable channel that will allow ocean freighters travelling from the Atlantic Ocean to gain access to the inland ports along the Great Lakes of North America. The Seaway Project had another purpose, and this was to provide much needed hydro-electric power to the region.
After four years of construction, the Saint Lawrence Seaway —named after the Saint Lawrence River, which flows from Lake Ontario to the Atlantic Ocean— was complete. On July 1, 1958, the cofferdams that had been holding back the water during construction were finally blown apart, and a small group of riverside communities in the Canadian province of Ontario, near Cornwall, disappeared under the waves of Lake St. Lawrence. This group of nine villages — Aultsville, Dickinson’s Landing, Farran’s Point, Maple Grove, Mille Roches, Moulinette, Santa Cruz, Wales and Woodlands— are now collectively known as "The Lost Villages".
Lost Villages Museum near Long Sault. Photo credit: P199/Wikimedia
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