Canadian Landform Regions

The Canadian Shield

• It’s the oldest landform (made 3.94 billion years ago), and it’s located in the middle of Canada. It’s large, flat, and rocky. Its natural resources are gold, lead, nickel, copper, zinc, diamonds, trees, & fresh water. Its jobs consist of logging, pulp, paper, tourism, & hydropower (energy). There’s very little farming due to thin & poor soil, exposed bedrock, and poor drainage. It was created from an eroded mountain; it’s mostly igneous and metamorphic rock; glaciers carved out lakes & scratched bedrock.

Lowlands

1. Interior Plains

   • It’s 400 million years old and is located in the prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba) and Northwest Territories. It’s flat in some parts, rolling hills in other parts, and has 3 distinct elevations. It has natural gas and oil (from dead animals and plants left in soil from when it was a sea), grain, deep fertile soil for farming. Jobs consist of cattle and energy (natural gas & oil(, farming, forestry. It used to be a shallow sea, and erosion of different rocks created deep wide river valleys, rolling hills, slopes from west to east, and is mostly sedimentary rocks.

2. Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands

   • It’s 20,000 years old and is located in the southern tip of Canada & along the St. Lawrence river. It’s a rolling landscape with flat plains, glacial hills, deep river valleys, and large lakes. It has very fertile soil. The jobs consist of farming and tourism, and there are many types of jobs. It was created by sedimentary rock, and glaciation cause rolling hills & flat areas, and gouged out deep river valleys.

     3. Hudson Bay - Arctic Lowlands

        • It’s 20,000 years old and is located around the Hudson bay, and islands in the North. The Hudson Bay lowlands are low lying, very flat, swampy forests, while the Arctic lowlands are a series of islands. Its natural resources are coal, oil, & natural gas. Soil is often frozen, or too swampy to farm. Jobs consist of tourism and energy. It was created by melting/retreating

          of glaciers that carved out the Canadian Shield;

          pools of meltwater formed and deposited

          sediments to create sedimentary rock

   Highlands

   1. Western Cordillera

      • It’s located in the Western edge of Canada, and it has sharp, tall mountain ranges separated by plateaus & valleys; fjords. Its natural resources are fertile soil in the valleys due to deposits from glaciers, minerals, fresh water