Canada Geography

According to 3rjewelry.com, Canada is divided into several geographic regions. The largest of them is the Canadian Shield, which occupies almost half of the country. This area, which has the shape of a kind of bowl centered around Hudson Bay, is made up of igneous and metamorphic rocks of pre-Protozoan age. In the east, it extends to the bay of Sv. Lawrence, in the west extends from Lake Winnipeg in the south to Great Bear Lake in the northwest.

East of the Canadian Shield in southern Ontario and southwestern Quebec are the Great Lakes Lowlands and the St. Lawrence River Basin. This much smaller area is the most populated part of Canada. The gently undulating landscape of the Bruce Peninsula is bordered by Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. The two lakes are connected by the Niagara River, which rushes over a steep threshold from a height of fifty meters and creates waterfalls more than 1,200 m wide. The Ontario Plain to the northwest of Niagara Falls is an area modeled by a glacier, covered with drumlins – elongated mounds formed from rock material left by the retreating continental glacier. To the northeast of here lie the lowlands of the Ottawa Valley and southern Quebec. To the east of Quebec lies an area which is known as Appalachian Canada and includes the Atlantic provinces of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and the island of Newfoundland. The jagged mountain ridges here were created by the folding of older rocks, which were subsequently eroded by glaciers and the harsh climate. The highest heights are reached by the Notre Dame Mountains, which extend northeast of Quebec along the wide mouth of the St. Lawrence, and the Long Range Mountains of Newfoundland. To the southwest of the Canadian Shield and Hudson Bay lie the Great Plains—a vast, triangular expanse that covers the center of the earth and takes up about one-fifth of its land area. The Manitoba Plain is criss-crossed by a network of lakes, most of them remnants of a huge lake that covered the entire area when the last glacier retreated.

To the west of the lake region rises the more rugged low ridge of the Manitoba Sill, behind which lies the hilly terrain of the Saskatchewan Plain. The rolling water from the melting glaciers cut wide riverbeds with steep banks in the ground. Towards the west in the province of Alberta, the terrain continues to rise. In this area too, the movement of the glacier caused extensive erosion and created an undulating plateau.

To the west of the Great Plains, the Canadian Rockies stretch to the very coast of the Pacific Ocean. This massive belt is about 800 km wide and stretches for about 200 km from Alaska through the territory of the Yukon, western Alberta to British Columbia and on to the USA. Its western branch consists of the wild Coast Mountains reaching a height of up to 4000 km. Between it and the Rocky Mountains to the east is a wide range of high mountain plateaus (Yukon, Stikine, Nechako and Fraser Plateau). The eastern branch begins in the north with the Mackenzie Mountains and continues to the southeast through the Rocky Mountains proper, with a series of massive peaks of younger rocks almost 400 meters high (Mount Robson 3954 m) on the border of British Columbia and Alberta. Parallel to the Rocky Mountains, the St. Elias Mountains (with the extinct volcano Mt. St. Elias 5489 m) stretch in the north along the west coast, where Canada’s highest mountain, Mount Logan, is located at 5,951 meters above sea level. Further south, the Přímorský hory continue, and the entire coast is divided by deep fjords and numerous islands. The Queen Charlotte Islands and Vancouver Island in the Pacific Ocean are actually the peaks of another parallel mountain range.

To the north of the Canadian Shield lie the Arctic Islands, bordering the still-frozen sea of ​​the Arctic Ocean. A large part of the open sea is covered with a layer of ice about 3 meters thick, yet only half of the islands’ area is also covered with ice. In the north-east, the elevation of the islands rises, and on Ellesmere Island and along the east coast of Baffin Island there is already a mountainous landscape. The rocky mountain terrain is for the most part surrounded by ice and snow, and some massifs are entirely covered by huge glaciers.

Climate

More than half of Canada has a subarctic climate, with cool summers and very cold winters – often colder than the Arctic itself, where the occurrence of extremely low temperatures is weakened by the waters of the Arctic Ocean. Winter begins in the polar regions in August. The temperature drops rapidly until December and remains low until March. Also, the Atlantic Ocean, which has a more constant temperature, moderates the climate in those places where its waters flow into the polar region. This causes milder winters, cooler summers and higher precipitation. In the summer, temperatures on the Arctic islands do not reach excessive heights, although inland some areas can experience short periods of heat during which temperatures reach 30 °C. Further south, the climate is typically continental with hot summers and cold winters. It is warmest in southern Ontario, in the Great Lakes region. The mildest winters are on the southeast and especially on the west coast, which has a characteristic oceanic climate. Winds blowing from the sea bring heavy rain and snow to the Maritime Mountains, but behind them lies an area in the rain shadow, dry especially in winter. In the summer, the familiar Prairie Thunderstorms provide precipitation across the vast Great Plains region. Further to the east, the source of moisture is the Great Lakes. Moist air from the Atlantic Ocean brings abundant rainfall to Canada in the summer and especially heavy snowfall to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in the winter. In the summer, the familiar Prairie Thunderstorms provide precipitation across the vast Great Plains region. Further to the east, the source of moisture is the Great Lakes. Moist air from the Atlantic Ocean brings abundant rainfall to Canada in the summer and especially heavy snowfall to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in the winter. In the summer, the familiar Prairie Thunderstorms provide precipitation across the vast Great Plains region. Further to the east, the source of moisture is the Great Lakes. Moist air from the Atlantic Ocean brings abundant rainfall to Canada in the summer and especially heavy snowfall to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in the winter.