Even when the Gulf of the St. Lawrence is entered, the navigator is not free from peril. The waterway is littered with rocks and islands. Among these are Coffin Island and Anticosti, the latter being the private property of M. Henri Ménier, the French chocolate magnate. For many years the St. Lawrence was a byword to navigation, and wrecks were numerous. It was shunned by navigators and abhorred by underwriters. Even to this day the latter regard it askance, and the insurance rates are high upon vessels trading in these waters. Through the efforts of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, the Dominion Government is removing this stigma from their great marine avenue, and their engineer-in-chief. Lieutenant-Colonel William P. Anderson, to whom I am indebted for much information concerning the guardians of the Canadian coasts, has displayed commendable enterprise and ingenuity in combating the natural odds pitted against human endeavour to render the coasts of the country more friendly to navigation. In the St. Lawrence the great foe is ice. Its onslaughts are terrific, and none but the strongest works has a chance to survive the enormous pressure exerted when the ice is on the run after the break of winter. As is well known, for some five months in the year the river is frozen so thick and solid that it will support a train. Naturally, when this armour collapses, and the floes are hurled seawards by the current, they concentrate their destructive energies upon any obstacles in their way, piling up in huge masses weighing thousands of tons. It is no uncommon circumstance for the floes to pack in a jagged heap 50 feet high, while all the time there is a continual push against the obstruction. Under these circumstances extreme ingenuity has to be displayed in the erection of the fixed lights. The floating lights, such as buoys, escape this peril, as they are picked up when navigation ceases, to be housed in quarters on dry land, and replaced when the river is open once more. Yet it is not only the ice in itself which causes trouble. The level of the river rises when the ice is running, and this pressure alone is enormous, while the scouring action about the foundations is terrific. The type of structure adopted varies with the situation and character of the light. The beacons for the aid of navigation, in common with the practice upon American waterways, are divided into groups or ranges, and the captain picks out his channel by keeping these lights and marks in various lines. Maybe four or five lights have to be brought into line, and accordingly the height of the unit of each range varies from its fellow. Thus, the front light will be low, that behind a little higher, and so on, until the last light in the group, or “back light” of the range, as it is called, is a lofty structure.