Reaching the Great Lakes from the Atlantic: St. Lawrence River

Many Great Lakes Theorists claim that the Lehi Colony sailed up the Atlantic from the tip of Africa, then across the Atlantic to the St. Lawrence Gulf, then down the St. Lawrence River to Lake Ontario, then into Lake Erie (their West Sea).

On a map, this 1900-mile-voyage up the St. Lawrence River looks plausible, but in reality, would have been impossible in 600 B.C.
At about the area of present-day Montreal in Canada, the St. Lawrence River was blocked from maritime movement up until 1825 when the Lachine Canal opened, bypassing an impassable area along the St. Lawrence, about 200 miles from Lake Ontario, known as the Lachine Rapids. Considered virtually impassable before 1825, maritime traffic on the St. Lawrence River was halted by these rapids and any supplies to Montreal had to be portaged overland.

Simply put, this means, that no ship of any kind, unless it had wings, could have reached the Great Lakes in 600 B .C. Nor were there any other direct routes for a ship to have taken during those B.C. centuries that would have allowed the settlement of the Great Lakes area, including the states to the south, being upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota or Wisconsin—the stomping grounds of the ancient Indians known as the Hopewell culture.

It is true that the St. Lawrence was continuously navigable, but just short of Montreal where these rapids were caused by a series of uneven levels, rocks, and shallow waters between the present day island of Montreal and the south shore, near the former city of Lachine. The rapids contain large standing waves because the water volume and current do not change with respect to the permanent features in the riverbed, namely its shelf-like drops. Seasonal variation in the water flow does not change the position of the waves, although it does change their size and shape.

The first European to see the rapids was Jacques Cartier, who sailed up the St. Lawrence River in 1535, believing he had found the Northwest Passage. In 1611 Samuel de Champlain named the rapids Sault Saint-Louis, after a crewman who drowned there; the name later extended to Lac Saint-Louis. This name remained in use until the mid-19th century, but later came to be replaced by the name of the adjacent town of Lachine.

An extensive system of canals and locks, known as the Saint Lawrence Seaway, was officially opened on 26 June 1959, by Queen Elizabeth II (representing Canada) and President Dwight D. Eisenhower (representing the United States). The Seaway now permits ocean-going vessels to pass all the way to Lake Superior. But in 600 B.C., and, in fact, all the way up until 1825, no type of vessel could navigate the St. Lawrence to Montreal and to the Great Lakes—it was virtually impossible.

In the mid-19th century, a paddlewheel steamboat, with its shallow draft, designed for this specific purpose, was unable to shoot the Lachine Rapids. Later attempts resulted in ships hung up on the sandbars or rocks, and had to be towed out by salvage vessels.
As has been said in many former posts—those who do not know what they are talking about often make drastic mistakes about voyages, directions, and routes that appear viable today on a map, but were impossible in B.C. times and often as late as the 18th or 19th centuries.