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Chapter 10

Canada: The Maritime Provinces

• Canada and the U.S. share the longest unfortified border in the world.
• Maritime means “bordering the sea.” For centuries, sailors have lived in scattered villages along the coasts, depending on the sea for their livelihood, just as their neighbors do in New England.
• In 1964, Newfoundland officially adopted the name “Newfoundland and Labrador” to give both parts of the province equal honor.
• The capital of Newfoundland, St. John’s, sits beside the world-famous Grand Banks fishing grounds.
• The French settled the three southernmost Maritime Provinces. They called the region Acadia.
• Halifax is the largest city, port, and industrial area in the Maritime Provinces.
• The remainder of New Brunswick’s citizens are mainly of British or Loyalist ancestry.
• The Appalachian Mountains, which extend into the northern parts of New Brunswick, are mined for lead, copper, and zinc. The forests also provide lumber.
• Prince Edward Island is the smallest Canadian province, only slightly larger than the state of Delaware. Its farmland supports the highest population density of any Canadian province—about sixty-two people per square mile.
• The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world.
• A majority of the islanders have a Scottish heritage.

The Central Provinces: Quebec

• Over two-thirds of Canadians live within one hundred miles of the United States border.
• The building of farms, towns, and industries along a narrow band of good land is called ribbon development.
• A solid mass of hard rock, called the Canadian Shield, covers most of eastern Canada.
• Though poor in soil, the Canadian Shield has been a blessing to miners, who exploit rich deposits of iron, copper, nickel, gold, lead, zinc, and cobalt.
• A subpolar climate dominates the Canadian Shield. Coniferous forest, called taiga, cover most of the Central Provinces. In the northernmost extremes, trees cannot grow at all and give way to tundra.
• Portage—land routes used by canoe toters.
• The French and British fought sporadically until Britain won a decisive victory in the Seven Years’ War.
• Quebec is Canada’s largest province.
• In 1974 Quebec made French the province’s sole official language (language used in government records and road signs).
• Bilingual—speak two languages

The Central Provinces: Ontario

• To make the entire Saint Lawrence Seaway navigable, Canada needed to build several canals and locks.
• Demilitarize—to remove all forts and soldiers from a common border
• Canada’s national capital is Ottawa.
• The British North America Act established a confederation of four provinces—Ontario, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Nova Scotia.
• Each province has its own unicameral (one-branch) legislature and a governor called the premier. Like the prime minister, the premier is chosen by the legislature.
• Roman Catholicism dominates Canada, claiming nearly half of the population; most other claim to be Protestants.

The Western Provinces

• The 4,860-mile Trans-Canada Highway links the east and west.
• The continental heating and cooling of the Prairie Provinces makes the climate somewhat harsh.
• In Canada, the cordillera forms a five-hundred-mile-wide band of two systems—the Rockies and the Coast Mountains.
• Vancouver’s deep port is the busiest in the nation.
• Eskimos call themselves the Inuit or “real men.”
• The Mackenzie River, the longest river system in North America, winds northward from the Great Slave Lake through the western part of the territory to the Arctic Ocean.
• Archipelagos—island groups
• On May 4, 1992, the Northwest Territories approved a plan to split the territory in April 1999 and to allow Inuit self-government. The new territory was named Nunavut (Inuit for “our land”).