Search for "black history"

The Bonnet Plume River begins its journey in the Mackenzie Mountains on the Yukon and NWT border.

The Rocky Mountain Trench is a long and deep valley extending approximately 1,500 km from the Bitterroot Valley in northwest Montana through British Columbia to the Liard Plain just south of the Yukon Territory. Its predominantly flat floor is 3–20 km wide and ranges in elevation between 600 m and 1,000 m above sea level. With walls made of sedimentary, volcanic and igneous rock, the Trench is sometimes referred to as the “Valley of a Thousand Peaks” because of the towering mountain ranges on either side: the Rocky Mountains to the east and the Columbia, Omineca and Cassiar mountains to the west. Humans have relied on the rich resources provided by this distinctive landscape from pre-colonial times to the present.

Lac Mistassini, 2335 km2, elevation 372 m, max length 161 km and width 19 km, is located in central Québec, 360 km east of JAMES BAY and 220 km northwest of Lac SAINT-JEAN.

At 3,185 km (1,149 km of which lie in Canada), the Yukon River is among the longest rivers in the country (see also Longest Rivers in Canada). Its headwaters are in the northwest corner of British Columbia, at the province’s border with the Yukon. It flows north and northwest across the Yukon into Alaska, then west to Norton Sound on the Bering Sea. Within the large central plateau of the Yukon, ringed by the Mackenzie Mountains to the east and the St. Elias range to the southwest, the Yukon River and its tributaries form the region’s dominant drainage basin.

The northern Selwyn Mountains lie to the east of the Yukon-NWT border, and the southern section straddles the border south from the Macmillan Pass to the South Nahanni River.

The Thames River begins in a swampy area of southwestern Ontario and meanders quietly for 273 km past the cities of Woodstock, London and Chatham-Kent to empty into Lake St. Clair.

From its source just south of Georgian Bay, the Grand River winds 266 km to Lake Erie, dropping 352 m along the way. Together with its major tributaries, the Speed, Nith, Conestogo and Eramosa rivers, it drains 6200 km2, the largest watershed in southern Ontario.

Although the other limits are less well defined, the highlands may be considered to extend 100-200 km northward from the scarps and to stretch from the Gatineau River in the west (mean elevation 400 m) some 550 km to the SAGUENAY RIVER in the northeast.

This article is from our Toronto Feature series. Features from past programs are not updated.

The Coast Mountains are a continuous mountain chain extending from the Fraser Lowlands near Vancouver, 1,600 km north into the Yukon.

Mountains. As an inspiration for Canadian music, mountains have enjoyed limited popularity. Not unexpectedly the mountains most often referred to are the Rockies of Alberta and British Columbia.

Nagwichoonjik, meaning "river flowing through a big country," is the Gwich'in name for the Mackenzie River, the longest river in Canada and the 9th longest river in the world. The river flows through the heart of the traditional homeland of the Gwichya Gwich'in, who now largely reside in  Tsiigehtchic (formerly Arctic Red River), a small community of 200 people at the confluence of the Arctic Red and Mackenzie rivers, in the northern part of the Northwest Territories. ( See also Indigenous Territory).

Cape Sable Island is a flat, wooded island off the southwestern tip of Nova Scotia. Connected to the mainland by a causeway on the north side, it shelters the waters of Barrington Bay to the east. The MIKMAQ hunted seals off Cape Sable Island.

The Columbia River runs from the southeast corner of British Columbia through Washington and Oregon states to the Pacific Ocean.

The Mackenzie River’s main stem is 1,738 km long, making it one of the longest rivers in Canada. The Mackenzie River system, which includes tributaries such as the Liard River, is 4,241 km. The Mackenzie River runs northwest through the Northwest Territories, from Great Slave Lake to the Beaufort Sea. Its total drainage basin — 1.8 million km² — is the largest of any river in Canada and its mean discharge of 9,700 m³/s is second only to that of the St. Lawrence. The river's peak discharge occurs in June, but its flow is generally uniform because of the flat topography east of the river and the many large lakes in the system. The break-up of ice begins at the Liard River in late April, early May. The river is free of ice by early June and stays open until November.

Grosse Île is an island in the St. Lawrence Estuary, 46 km downstream from Quebec City. It is 2.9 km long and 1 km wide and consists of a wooded Appalachian ridge surrounded by a coastline of coves and capes. It is one of the 21 islands composing the Isle-aux-Grues archipelago. It has also been known as Île de Grâce and Quarantine Island. From 1832 to 1937, it was used as a quarantine station for the port of Quebec City. Over this century of activity, more than 4 million immigrants passed through this station, including nearly 90,000 during the “black year” of 1847. Closely tied to memories of Irish immigration to Canada, Grosse Île is a Canadian national historic site, administered by Parks Canada and open to the public.

The Queen Elizabeth Islands, NWT/Nunavut, are a group of islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago lying north of a great bathometric trench composed of (east to west) Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Viscount Melville Sound and M'Clure Strait.

Portage is a way by land around an interruption in a water route. Until the early 19th century most inhabitants of what is now Canada travelled mainly by water. Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser demonstrated that it is possible, by portaging 100 times, to canoe from the St Lawrence to the Arctic or Pacific oceans.

Ranching became important in the area after the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived at MAPLE CREEK in 1883. Beginning in 1906, part of the Cypress Hills was protected as a federal forest reserve. RESOURCE RIGHTS were transferred to the provinces in 1930.

Hans Island, Nunavut, is a tiny (1.2 km²), unpopulated island south of the 81st parallel in the Kennedy Channel (the northern part of Nares Strait), almost equidistant between Ellesmere Island and Greenland. The Greenlandic word for the island is Tartupaluk. (Greenlandic is a language spoken by Greenland Inuit.) For decades, both Canada and Denmark claimed ownership of the island. On 14 June 2022, however, the two countries settled the dispute, dividing the island roughly equally between them. (See also Canadian Arctic Sovereignty.)