Chapter 1 Objectives and Tools of World Regional Geography

Canada’s General Traits

121. Atlantic Canada: Hardscrabble Living

122. Canada’s Core Region: Ontario and Québec

123. The Prairie Region: Oil, Wheat, and Wilderness

124. The Vancouver Region and British Columbia

JQ.The Near North

JR.Territorial Canada: Indigenous Landscapes

125. The North: Lots of Land, Few People

126. Greenland: A White Land

Canada is an affluent, urbanized, technologically advanced nation. It differs from other MDCs in several ways, most notably in its role as a major importer of manufactured and consumer goods and a major exporter of raw or semi-finished materials, energy, and agricultural products. Canada is also extremely reliant upon just one other country, the United States, for most of its trade; the U.S. takes in 82 percent of Canada’s exports. The bulk of Canada’s foreign investment also comes from the U.S. The two countries are closely interconnected economically, which has led many Canadians to believe they are an economic “colony” of the U.S.

Atlantic Canada is made up of the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and the island of Newfoundland. Atlantic Canada is losing population and has long been in economic doldrums. The region’s formerly lucrative fishing industry has been hard hit by competition and by declining fish stocks, and the soil is hard to farm. Many mines and factories have closed with the lessening importance of coal. The region supports itself by tourism, hydroelectric power generation, and subsidies from the federal government.

Southern reaches of Ontario and Québec form Canada’s core region. Two-thirds of Canada’s population lives here, especially around the cities of Toronto and Montreal, though the core stretches along Lakes Erie and Ontario and along a portion of the St. Lawrence River. The two provinces have several significant differences. Québec’s population is mainly French speaking, and the province on several occasions has held referendums on whether it should secede from Canada and become an independent nation. A colder climate has limited Québec’s agricultural output. Québec’s industries have traditionally been smaller and more labor-intensive, such as textiles and furniture. Ontario is mostly English speaking, and its more hospitable southern peninsula allowed the province to become more prosperous and agriculturally productive. Ontario also had better access to coal, fostering earlier industrial development, and the steel industry and other heavy manufacturing is still centered in Ontario.

The Prairie Provinces consist of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, even though prairies only exist in their southern sections. This is a very fertile area and produces Canada’s spring wheat crop. Minerals are also important to this region, with petroleum (including the tar sands), coal, and uranium having the most economic impact.

Most of British Columbia is rugged and lightly populated, except in the southwest region centered on Vancouver, Canada’s largest port and the province’s main industrial and financial center. Timber, hydroelectricity and mining are mainstays in inland British Columbia, and salmon “fish farming” has become an important coastal industry.

Canada’s “Near North” stretches from British Columbia to Labrador is sparsely settled in widely scattered mining settlements. Mining is the most important industry, along with timber and hydroelectricity generated from the region’s numerous rivers and lakes. Agriculture is very limited. The rest of “the North” is mostly land without provincial status. The Yukon, Nunavut, and Northwest Territories are home to Canada’s Inuit, who still practice some hunting and gathering but live mostly on subsidies from the federal government and royalty payments for mining rights to the land.

Greenland is the world’s largest island, and has been owned by Denmark for 400 years. Only 50,000 people, mostly Inuit, live here, along the coastlines. The interior of the island is a vast ice sheet. Denmark subsidizes the island’s residents, and the EU pays Greenland millions for fishing rights off its waters. Greenland is also home to some American military facilities.

245. 
     Canada is unique as a more developed country mainly in economic ways. While Canada exports many manufactured goods, it is mainly an exporter of raw materials, agricultural products, and semi-finished goods. It is a major importer of manufactured goods, which is atypical of MDCs. Canada is also overwhelmingly dependent upon one other country for most of its economic wellbeing; the United States takes in 82 percent of Canada’s exports, and supplies 55 percent of Canada’s imports. Similarly, about two-thirds of Canada’s foreign investment comes from the U.S. [p. 630]
     

246. 
     The United States is Canada’s main trading partner, and the U.S. instituted tariffs against Canadian fish to protect its own fishermen and domestic market. Competition increased worldwide, with Canadian waters fished by foreign fleets. This resulted in forcing Canadian fishermen from their own waters. Increasing technology and numbers of fishermen caused a serious decline in the numbers of fish off the Canadian coasts, numbers that have not yet begun to recover despite protections put in place. [pp. 631-634]
     

247. 
     Canada is one of the world’s top ten manufacturing countries, exporting goods such as automobiles, aircraft, and machinery. Canada is also a major exporter of wheat, timber, natural gas, oil, hydroelectric power, salmon, and other mineral and agricultural products. Most Canadian exports are sold to the United States, though China and Japan are large markets for Canadian minerals such as coal. Canada imports many manufactured goods, especially many consumer goods, mainly from the United States. [p. 631]
     

248. 
     Climate is obviously a limiting factor for agriculture in Canada. A relatively short growing season coupled with cold temperatures prohibits a mixed crop production characteristic of the U.S. However, what Canada lacks in its range of products is compensated by specialization in certain commodities such as wheat, dairy, and forest products. The Prairie Provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba) constitute the country’s breadbasket. Dairy production in Canada is part of the larger North American dairy belt, and not unexpectedly, dairy farms are common in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands of Ontario and Québec. Finally, Canada is noted for its forest products and communities across the Near North rely on the harvesting of trees for their livelihood. [pp. 635, 638, 640]
     

249. 
     The two provinces comprising Canada’s core region are Ontario and Québec. These two provinces are the most populous in the country, and they form the bulk of Canada’s industrial production. However, Ontario and Québec have strong differences between them, most notably that of language. Ontario is mainly English speaking, while Québec is mostly French speaking. Initially both agricultural, southern Ontario’s superior climate for farming made it a more prosperous area, but Canadian goods were shipped out via the St. Lawrence River, flowing through Québec, developing its cities such as Québec City and Montréal as seaports. Better access to coal fueled the initial industrial development of Ontario, which developed into a major manufacturing area. Québec-based industries tended to be (and often remain today) much more low-tech and labor intensive than those based in Ontario. [pp. 635-637]
     

250. 
     Québec’s separatist movement has roots that go back to the initial European settlement of the country, and the antagonism between the British and the French in Europe was conveyed across the Atlantic. The French lost their political autonomy in 1763, but the hope of regaining it was revived in the 1980s when two referenda sponsored by the Parti Québécois (PQ) nearly passed. The Canadian government has attempted to mollify separatist sentiment by officially recognizing Québec as a “distinct society” and making French (along with English) an official language. In addition, the federal government has allowed the province of Québec greater authority. [p. 636]
     

251. 
     The St. Lawrence Seaway is comprised of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, along with various locks and canals designed to circumvent natural barriers (such as Niagara Falls) and ease the movement of ships from one end to the other. This seaway has turned inland cities such as Duluth, Chicago, Toronto, and Montréal into international seaports. It has been vital to the economic development of both the U.S. and Canada, by enabling goods and products created far inland to be shipped out to world markets easily. Goods created in the Midwest could bypass the longer route out to sea via the St. Lawrence River by traveling through the Erie Canal, which linked Lake Erie with the Hudson River. Goods could then be transferred to New York City, greatly increasing that city’s importance in world affairs as well. [pp. 636-637]
     

252. 
     Initially Québec City was as far inland as ships could go on the St. Lawrence River. But after a series of improvements were made to the river to allow further access inland, Montréal became the stopping point. Its location (closer to the industrial and agricultural centers of Ontario and the interior U.S.) allowed Montréal to surpass Québec City in population and become Canada’s primary seaport, a position it did not lose until very recently. [p. 636]
     

253. 
     Although less than 5 percent of Canada’s land area is arable and only 3 percent of Canada’s labor force are engaged in farming, Canada is a major world wheat exporter. This is because of the very rich soils found in Canada’s Prairie Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, which is a direct continuation of the fertile Great Plains of the United States. [p. 638]
     

254. 
     Rivers and lakes are abundant in Canada’s Near North, and many of these waterways have been tapped to generate hydropower. This electricity is used to power local mills and is exported to the United States and more populated areas of Canada. Despite this development of energy, the Near North remains very sparsely populated. [p. 640]
     

255. 
     Global warming as it affects the Arctic region raises concerns that it will accelerate a scramble for resources as ice melts. By some estimates, the Arctic Ocean will be free of summer sea ice by 2020, which some interpret as an opportunity to exploit new fishing grounds and search for oil and gas reserves. Five nations – Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark, and the U.S. – are currently in possession of exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in the Arctic Ocean realm, and unlike the continent of Antarctica, which by international agreement is not owned by anyone, are anxious to carve out larger segments as sovereign territory. [p. 642]
     

256. 
     Greenland has been under the control of Denmark since 1605, but in 1979 the large island was granted self-government, with only its foreign affairs still handled by Denmark. While there is some talk among Greenlanders of independence, Denmark subsidizes Greenland for over $8,000 per person per year; independence for Greenland would cut off that money, making independence a very costly proposition. [p. 643]
     

257. 
     Greenland, a Danish possession, is the world’s largest island, but 80 percent of it is covered by ice nearly two miles (3,000 m) thick. Scientific measurements as of 2007 indicate that Greenland is losing annually up to eighty cubic miles (c. 330 cu km) of ice, which is three times the rate of a decade ago. This dramatic “meltdown” is attributed to global warming, and should it continue the water currently held in a frozen state would raise world ocean levels by twenty feet (six m) over the next millennium. [p. 643]
     

This module should enable your students to…

• 
  Recognize how rivers, topographic boundaries, and other geographic circumstances promoted the development of many American cities
  
• 
  Understand the environmental and political issues that complicate development of coal, oil, and natural gas in the United States but promote the use of biofuels
  
• 
  Follow the decline of traditional heavy industries in the process of deindustrialization and their replacement by high-technology and service industries
  
• 
  Evaluate the depopulation of the Great Plains, the decline of small towns, and the potential for communication technology and foreign immigration to reverse these trends
  
• 
  Gain more insight into the country’s ethnic geography and immigration issues
  

127. 
     
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