A strategically important waterway throughout Canadian and Newfoundland history, the strait is also an important international shipping route, being the primary waterway linking the Atlantic with inland ports on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway. The strait is crossed daily by the Marine Atlanticferry service linking Channel_Port aux Basques, Newfoundland and Labrador, and North Sydney, Nova Scotia. Ferries have been operating across the strait since 1898 and a submarine telegraph cable was laid in 1856 as part of the transatlantic telegraph cable project.
An infamous location in the strait for shipwrecks during the age of sail, St. Paul's Island, came to be referred to as the Graveyard of the Gulf (of St. Lawrence).