St. Lawrence Crossing

Inspired by the zebra mussel and its role in bringing obscured histories to light, St. Lawrence Crossing forms part of an investigation into how the creation of the Saint Lawrence Seaway for ocean-going vessels has radically re-shaped perceptions of the Saint Lawrence River. Inaugurated in 1959 through a partnership between the US and Canadian federal governments, the Seaway is a massive infrastructure project that significantly changed the course of the river to open freight routes between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean; this greatly intensified commercial flows through the region, and thereby extended processes of colonial dispossession for communities on its path, such as Kahnawá:ke. Along with their container cargo, ocean-going vessels unwittingly carried the zebra mussel, introducing the species into North America, where it spread across lakes and rivers, clogging pipes and disrupting water treatment plants. The mussels’ rapid proliferation, however, has also clarified the Saint Lawrence’s waters (through the straining actions of their filter feeding), making parts of the riverbed newly visible from above, and revealing the ruins of houses flooded by the Seaway seventy years ago. The traces of such changes, through which federal governments see waterways as mere links in a global economic supply chain, suggest the importance of non-human actors in helping to represent bewildering ecological changes that states would rather hide far offshore. A reminder of the unintended consequences of containerization in maritime trade, and the hubris of federally sanctioned infrastructure projects—what more can the zebra mussel show us?