The Gulf of St. Lawrence is a gulf that fringes the shores of the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada, plus the islands Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, possessions of France, in North America.
The Gulf of St. Lawrence connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence River.
New France was the territory colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spain in 1763 under the Treaty of Paris.
A vast viceroyalty, New France consisted of five colonies at its peak in 1712, each with its own administration: Canada, the most developed colony, which was divided into the districts of Quebec (around what is now called Quebec City), Trois-Rivières, and Montreal; Hudson Bay; Acadia in the northeast; Terre-Neuve on the island of Newfoundland; and Louisiana. It extended from Newfoundland to the Canadian Prairies and from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, including all the Great Lakes of North America. The continent-traversing Saint Lawrence and Mississippi rivers were means of carrying French influence through much of North America.
New Brunswick is a province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to the west. It is part of Eastern Canada and is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. The province is about 83% forested and its northern half is occupied by the Appalachians. The province's climate is continental with snowy winters and temperate summers. The province has a surface area of 72,908 km (28,150 sq mi) and 775,610 inhabitants (2021 census).
Approximately half of the population lives in urban areas, predominantly in Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton. In 1969, New Brunswick passed the Official Languages Act which began recognizing French as an official language, along with English. New Brunswickers have the right to receive provincial government services in the official language of their choice. About two thirds of the population are English speaking and one third is French speaking. New Brunswick is home to most of the cultural region of Acadia and most Acadians. New Brunswick's variety of French is called Acadian French. There are seven regional accents.
Newfoundland (/ˈnjuːfən(d)lænd/ NEW-fən(d)-land, locally /ˌnuːfənˈlænd/ NEW-fən-LAND; French: Terre-Neuve, locally [taɛ̯ʁˈnœːv]) is a large island within the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is situated off the eastern coast of the North American mainland and the geographical region of Labrador.
The island contains 29 percent of the province's land area, but is home to over 90% of the province's population, with about 60% of the province's population located on the small southeastern Avalon Peninsula. The island is separated from the Labrador Peninsula by the Strait of Belle Isle and from Cape Breton Island by the Cabot Strait. It blocks the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, creating the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the world's largest estuary. Newfoundland's nearest neighbour is the French overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. With an area of 108,860 square kilometres (42,031 sq mi), Newfoundland is the world's 16th-largest island, Canada's fourth-largest island, and the largest Canadian island outside the North.
Vinland, Vineland, or Winland (Old Norse: Vínland hit góða, lit. 'Vinland the Good') was an area of coastal North America explored by Vikings. Leif Erikson landed there around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. The name appears in the Vinland Sagas and describes a land beyond Greenland, Helluland, and Markland. Much of the geographical content of the sagas corresponds to present-day knowledge of transatlantic travel and North America.
In 1960, archaeological evidence of the only known Norse site in North America, L'Anse aux Meadows, was found on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland. Before the discovery of archaeological evidence, Vinland was known only from the sagas and medieval historiography. The 1960 discovery further proved the pre-Columbian Norse exploration of mainland North America. Archaeologists found butternuts at L'Anse aux Meadows, which indicates voyages into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence as far as northeastern New Brunswick. L'Anse aux Meadows has been hypothesized to be the camp Straumfjörð mentioned in the Saga of Erik the Red.
Jacques Cartier (Breton: Jakez Karter; 31 December 1491 – 1 September 1557) was a French maritime explorer from Brittany. Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas" after the Iroquoian names for the two big settlements he saw at Stadacona (Quebec City) and at Hochelaga (Montreal Island).
Jacques Cartier, author of now-lost maps and accounts of his voyages, was the first European to describe and name this region and its inhabitants—at a time when the Spanish had already settled in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America, and were beginning their conquest of Peru.
Cape Breton Island (French: île du Cap-Breton, formerly île Royale; Scottish Gaelic: Ceap Breatainn or Eilean Cheap Bhreatainn; Mi'kmaq: Unama'ki) is a rugged and irregularly shaped island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada.
The 10,311 km (3,981 sq mi) island accounts for 18.7% of Nova Scotia's total area. Although the island is physically separated from the Nova Scotia peninsula by the Strait of Canso, the 1,385 m (4,544 ft) long Canso Causeway connects it to mainland Nova Scotia. The island is east-northeast of the mainland with its northern and western coasts fronting on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with its western coast forming the eastern limits of the Northumberland Strait. The eastern and southern coasts front the Atlantic Ocean with its eastern coast also forming the western limits of the Cabot Strait. Its landmass slopes upward from south to north, culminating in the highlands of its northern cape. A large body of saltwater, the Bras d'Or ("Golden Arm" in French), dominates the island's centre.
The Province of Lower Canada (French: province du Bas-Canada) was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence established in 1791 and abolished in 1841. It covered the southern portion of the current Province of Quebec and the Labrador region of the current Province of Newfoundland and Labrador (until the Labrador region was transferred to Newfoundland in 1809).
Lower Canada consisted of part of the former colony of Canada of New France, conquered by Great Britain in the Seven Years' War ending in 1763 (also called the French and Indian War in the United States). Other parts of New France conquered by Britain became the Colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.
Cabot Strait (/ˈkæbət/; French: détroit de Cabot, French: [kabo]) is in Atlantic Canada between Cape Ray, Newfoundland, and Cape North, Cape Breton Island. The strait, approximately 110 kilometres wide, is the widest of the three outlets for the Gulf of Saint Lawrence into the Atlantic Ocean, the others being the Strait of Belle Isle and Strait of Canso. It is named for the Italian explorer Giovanni Caboto.
The 1900 Galveston hurricane, also known as the Great Galveston hurricane and the Galveston Flood, and known regionally as the Great Storm of 1900 or the 1900 Storm, was a catastrophic tropical cyclone that became the deadliest natural disaster in the history of the United States. The strongest storm of the 1900 Atlantic hurricane season, it left between 6,000 and 12,000 fatalities in the United States; the number most cited in official reports is 8,000. Most of these deaths occurred in and near Galveston, Texas, after the storm surge inundated the coastline and the island city with 8 to 12 ft (2.4 to 3.7 m) of water. As of 2025, it remains the fourth deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, behind Hurricane Fifi of 1974. In addition to the number killed, the storm destroyed about 7,000 buildings of all uses in Galveston, which included 3,636 demolished homes; every dwelling in the city suffered some degree of damage. The hurricane left approximately 10,000 people in the city homeless, out of a total population of fewer than 38,000. The disaster ended the Golden Era of Galveston. The hurricane alarmed potential investors, who turned to Houston instead. In response to the storm, three engineers designed and oversaw plans to raise the Gulf of Mexico shoreline of Galveston Island by 17 ft (5.2 m) and erect a 10 mi (16 km) seawall.
On August 27, 1900, a ship east of the Windward Islands detected a tropical cyclone, the first observed that year. The system proceeded to move steadily west-northwestward and entered the northeastern Caribbean on August 30. It made landfall in the Dominican Republic as a weak tropical storm on September 2. It weakened slightly while crossing Hispaniola, before re-emerging into the Caribbean Sea later that day. On September 3, the cyclone struck modern-day Santiago de Cuba Province and then slowly drifted along the southern coast of Cuba. Upon reaching the Gulf of Mexico on September 6, the storm strengthened into a hurricane. Significant intensification followed and the system peaked as a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph (235 km/h) on September 8. Early on the next day, it made landfall to the south of Houston. The cyclone weakened quickly after moving inland and fell to tropical storm intensity late on September 9. The storm turned east-northeastward and became extratropical over Iowa on September 11. The extratropical system strengthened while accelerating across the Midwestern United States, New England, and Eastern Canada before reaching the Gulf of Saint Lawrence on September 13. After striking Newfoundland later that day, the extratropical storm entered the far North Atlantic Ocean and weakened, with the remnants last observed near Iceland on September 15.