Accession consists of records created and/or maintained by various the Ottawa, Cornwall, and St. Catherines offices of the Saint Lawrence Seaway Authority. These records cover a wide variety of activities, and are filed in the following SLSA subject blocks; 1 - Administration, 2 - Personnel, 3 - Finance, 4 - Information, 9 - Contracts, 10 - Remedial Works & Public Services, 24 - Claims, Accidents, 27 - Buildings and Properties, 31 - Commissions, Boards, Committees, 35 - Letters Patent, 36 - Deeds, 37 - Leases & Licenses, 39 - Transfers (of property), 54 - Business Development & Promotion, 56 - Traffic, and 60 - Navigation.
1 - Administration files relate mostly to legislation. 2 - Personnel files relate mostly to the organization of the institution. 3 - Finance files relate mostly to corporate plans. 4 - Information files relate mostly to special events and communications products. 9 - Contracts files relate mostly to contract policy. 10 - Remedial Works & Public Services files relate to infrastructure. 24 - Claims, Accidents files relate to a Nov. 21, 1984 incident where the lift portion of the Valleyfield bridge (spanning the Beauharnois Canal) malfunctioned and blocked navigation for 18 days. 27 - Buildings and Properties files relate to policy. 31 - Commissions, Boards, Committees files relate mostly to SLSA's involvement with the International Joint Commission, the Great Lakes Commission, and its wholly-owned subsidiary, the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation. 35 - Letters Patent and 36 - Deeds all relate to land transactions and expropriations. Note that some files contain original documents related to these transactions, but not all. In fact, these files appear to primarily consist of print-out records from a database that SLSA would have been using to document its land interests. Therefore, note as well that some, and perhaps many, of the dates reported for these files are not an accurate reflection of the dates of the records they contain. Since some files do not contain any files other than a database printout created no doubt some time around the 1990s, the reported dates are likely reflective of the dates of land transactions that were entered into the database. 37 - Leases & Licenses files document leases and licenses. 39 - Transfers (of property) files relate to land transfers (and may therefore have the same issues as discussed for 35 and 36 block records). 54 - Business Development & Promotion files appear to mostly relate to a campaign promoting the use of SLSA for the movement of coal. 56 - Traffic files relate to tolls. And 60 - Navigation files relate to a variety of topics, including policy, organizations, traffic control, research and development and studies, and documentation about specific ships.
