REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA

1. REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANADA Social Studies 9/10 Chapter Notes

2. CANADA: A REGIONAL GEOGRAPHYWhat regions are evident?

3. Five Themes of Canada’s Geography • Location: relative and absolute • Place: human and physical • Human and Environment Interactions: adaptation, modification, dependence • Movement: migration and transportation • Regions: consistent, focused, aligned, linked

4. Canada: territorial template over satellite photo composite

5. Divisions and Places Placing the Canadian map Political divisions: provinces and territories

6. Fundamentals of physical geography • Geology-process, structure, time • Topography-relief, slope • Soils-texture, pH, organic matter • Vegetation-water, arboreal, ecotone • Climate-air mass, current, precipitation, temperature, system

7. Underlying geology • Pink: precambrian granites • Green: younger sediments • Yellow: faulted and meta-morphized sediments • Blue: older sediments

8. Glacial legacy • Wisconsin-last ice age, maximum 18,000 yrs. BP • Southern limits-Wisconsin and Ohio Valley • Recedes-15,000-7,000 yrs. BP • Covers virtually all of Canada and northern US • Ice free corridor from Alaska through Yukon into northern BC

9. Remnant glacial landscapes • Ice margin • End moraine • Glacial lakes • Spillways • Kettle lakes • Eskers • Drumlins • Till plain • Erratic

10. Glacial till and erratic

11. esker

12. Drumlin and drumlin field

13. Glacial lake Louise and Paternoster Lakes

15. St. Lawrence Lowlands • Less than 2% of landmass; smallest region • Windsor to Quebec City • Sedimentary geology with glacial deposits • Moderate climate • Fertile soils • Long growing season • Close to the US • Canadian HEARTLAND

16. French Canadian ‘long lot’ farms and Niagara Falls

17. The Great Lakes and Ottawa

18. Toronto climate

19. Canadian Shield • 50% of Canada’s landmass; largest region • Almost entirely contained in Canada • Geological core underlies North America • Precambrian rocks more than 3 billion yrs. • Exposed granite and shallow soils • Glaciation evident • Mixed Boreal forest • Northern continental climate

20. Canadian shield vistas

21. Ste. Agathe climate

22. Appalachian Uplands • Over 2% of landmass • Northern part of Appalachians • Rounded uplands and plateaux • Numerous islands along drowned shoreline • Narrow river valleys • Rocky, shallow soils • Mixed forests • Cool maritime climate • Short summer wet, winter

23. Interior farms and forests, coastal settlements

24. Fredericton, NB

25. Hudson Bay Lowlands • Over 3.5% landmass • Muskeg or wet peat lands • Many lakes • Low ridges of sand and gravel • Poorly drained • Level • Northern climate • Maritime influence • Short, warm summer • Long, cold winter

26. Moosonee climate graph and Hudson Bay Lowland vista

27. Interior Plains • About 20% land mass • Geologic base of sedimentary rock • Shaped by glaciation and re-directed drainage • Incised river valleys • Slopes up from east to west with rich soils • Hudson’s Bay watershed • Oil and gas deposits • Continental climate • Moderate to low precipitation

28. Plains agriculture and Regina climate graph

29. Cordillera • Region of intra-regional differences • About 16% of land mass • Formed 40-80 million years ago from collision of North American and Pacific Plates • Rockies up thrust sediments • Coastal mountains volcanic: ‘ring of fire’ • Glaciers remain in Alpine areas • Fertile valleys and deltas • Coniferous • Multiple micro-climates

30. Mountains and valleys

31. Banff and Victoria climate graphs

32. Arctic lowlands • About 13% land mass • Coastal plains and lowlands • Islands and drowned shorelines • Sedimentary • Permafrost • Frost action is the main geomorphic process • Polar desert with very low precipitation • Extreme arctic climate conditions

33. Iqaluit climate graph and Arctic Lowlands vista

34. Innuitian Mountains • About 12% land mass • Plateaux and mountains • Extreme glaciation and extensive weathering of sedimentary rock • Extensive coastal drowning and fjiords • Islands • Uplifting and isostatic rebound • Extreme cold • Pack ice and ice flows • Glacier calving

35. Arctic mountain scenery and resolute climate graph

36. Drainage: Well drained south; poorly drained north

37. Climate • Continental and maritime influences • Prevailing winds • Jet stream • Mountain effects • Air masses • Freezing point • Seasonal variability • Precipitation • Cloud cover • Evaporation

38. Where are the people? Population distribution • In cities near the USA • 80% in cities over 100,000 • 80% within 100km of the US border • ‘main street Canada’: Windsor to Quebec City • Agricultural western interior • Coastal and river valley settlement in Atlantic region • Resource points in the Shield and the North • Western cordillera valleys and the BC coast

39. Canada CMAs and Population Change, 1996-2001

40. Canada’s Urban and Agricultural settlement Archipelago • Pattern set over 100 years ago • Islands of population and settlement amid a vast, inhospitable and often empty land • Contrast between heartland and hinterland • Regional centers • Hugging the border • The empty north

41. The People, Place, Region Relationship • Canada has always had urban centers where most people lived and worked • Urban centers were surrounded by a rural sphere to constitute the heartland • Beyond the rural lands, towns and villages, a sparsely populated resource extraction periphery or hinterland extended to the farthest reaches of the country • With transportation advances people moved to the commuting suburbs of cities

42. Three Popular Canadian Explanations and One Not So Popular Bilateral Explanation

43. Canada as a storehouse of raw materials: old and new explanations

44. Fisheries, then and now: Historic Grand Banks; Pacific Salmon catch and prospects

45. Fur trade legacy

46. Renewable forestry

47. Agricultural potential

48. Agricultural production

49. Minerals and Mining

50. Mining potential