Its drainage basin is 550 km2 (210 sq mi) large and a population of 350,000 persons live on its shores, in Quebec City and the Regional County Municipality of La Jacques-Cartier.

Walkers can see there among others: the Parc of the Kabir Kouba Cliff and Waterfall, a canyon, a bog covered with a wooden sidewalk for walkers, a wooded area in the middle of the forest, a lake, a wide variety of ferns, all a diversity of plants, several species of birds and a place to observe them, a water tower, historic houses, the hotel-museum First Nations, a Wyandot village and artworks.

This park was developed in 1972 to commemorate the passage of Jacques Cartier in 1535-1536 and the establishment of the first mission jésuite in Quebec by Jean de Brébeuf in 1625 and four others in 1625–1626.

Nowadays, there is a site interpretation center, a reconstruction of a Longhouses of the indigenous peoples of North America such as we were to find in Stadaconé, entertainment and relaxation spaces including floral arrangements.

The Parc de la Falaise et de la chute Kabir Kouba along the falls at this place has an interpretation center and trails allowing visitors to observe the 28-metre-high (92 ft) Kabir Kouba waterfall in a 42-metre-deep (138 ft) canyon, a rich flora and fossils as old as 455 million years.

In Loretteville, citizens can walk, ride and enjoy fresh air on the shores of the St-Charles River and in Jean-Roger-Durand Park.

Its current name was chosen between 1615 and 1625 by the Récollets missionaries who built a mission there, in honor of their protector Charles de Boves, vicar general of the diocese of Rouen.

[4] The southern part of the river's shores, near the estuary, was the site of the construction of industries during the 1960s (who used it as an open sewer) and that was girdled in concrete in the 1970s in order to regulate its flow.

Quebec City counts in 2008 160 overflow canals allowing municipal sewage to pour into the river without treatment during periods of network congestion, specially following heavy rain.

[6] Between 2002 and 2006, during the renaturalisation works, 14 retention reservoirs of great size were built, but investments ranging between 2 and 6 million dollars will still be required to alleviate the problem, in part blamed on old constructions where the gutters are directly connected to the city's sanitary installations.

The historian Chrestien Le Clercq specifies in 1691 that: "The little river was called Cabir Coubat by the Savages, because of the turns & returns it makes by snaking, & the points of land it forms: our Fathers gave it the name of Saint Charles, which she still keeps today in memory & in honor of Monsignor Charles des Bouës, or Des Boves, Grand Vicar of Pontoise, Father and Founder of our Mission.

” As early as 1636, Recollet Sagard had indicated that: "a small river that we call from S. Charles, & the Montagnais Cabirecoubat, because it turns and makes several points."