From the heart of the continent to the sea, from where Superior washes the pre-Cambrian rocks of her rugged northern shores to where the waters of the St.Lawrence lose their iridescence in the deeper blue of the Gulf, a two-thousand mile voyage through the most historic region of the New World, through a land of myriad lake and stream, majestic cataract, turbulent cascade, of terraced hill, undulating valley, precipitous mountain, its ever-changing landscape dotted, now by the habitation of the tiller of the soil, now by mine or mill, now by wayside hamlet, now by some monument to the storied past, and, intermittently, like the forged links in a giant chain, by mighty center of commerce, with always beyond, sentineling the horizon, the deep, silent forest -- such is the journey down the Great Lakes and River and Gulf of St. Lawrence, the most wonderful waterway on earth.