Coast Mountains
The Coast Mountains are a continuous mountain chain extending from the Fraser Lowlands near Vancouver, 1,600 km north into the Yukon.
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Create AccountThe Coast Mountains are a continuous mountain chain extending from the Fraser Lowlands near Vancouver, 1,600 km north into the Yukon.
Great Bear Lake is located in the Northwest Territories. With a surface area of 31,328 km2, Great Bear Lake is the largest lake located entirely inside Canadian borders. It is also the fourth largest in North America and the eighth largest in the world. Water flows out of the lake into the Great Bear River, then into the Mackenzie River. Other rivers connected to the lake include the Dease, Camsell and Johnny Hoe. Great Bear Lake is made up of five separate arms, each with their own names: Dease, McTavish, McVicar, Keith and Smith. (See also Largest Lakes in Canada.)
Hamilton Inlet, together with Lk Melville, forms the largest estuary, over 250 km long, 40 km wide (at the western end) and 150 m deep, on the Labrador coast.
The Soper River winds southwards 108 km through the tundra-covered hills of southern Baffin Island before emptying into Soper Lake, a brackish water body, and then directly into Hudson Strait near the community of Kimmirut, Nunavut.
The Mattawa River rises in Trout Lake in north-central Ontario, 198.5 m above sea level, and drops 50 m over the 54 km distance to the Ottawa River.
The Fraser River is the longest river in British Columbia, stretching 1,375 km. It begins on the western side of the Rocky Mountains at Mount Robson Provincial Park, and ends in the Strait of Georgia at Vancouver. Named for explorer Simon Fraser, the river was a transportation route and source of food for the Indigenous people of the region long before Fraser travelled its waters. In 1858, gold was discovered on sandbars south of Yale, setting off the Fraser River Gold rush.
Chaleur Bay, which lies between the Gaspé Peninsula, Québec, and northern New Brunswick, is the largest bay in the Gulf of St Lawrence. At its entrance lies Miscou Island.
The Quill Lakes are three connected saline lakes in southeastern Saskatchewan. They are located 150 km north of Regina and 152 km east of Saskatoon. From west to east the lakes are named Big Quill, Middle Quill (also known as Mud Lake) and Little Quill. Despite its name, at 181 km2 Little Quill is the second largest of the three lakes. Big Quill is the largest at 307 km2. The Quill Lakes’ elevation is 516 m.
The vegetation is of the tundra type, with outliers of the boreal spruce forest; willow thickets line the course of the Old Crow River.
Canada was founded along the many waterways utilized by Indigenous peoples, early explorers, fur traders and pioneers. As Canada became a more developed nation, the automobile and roads began to dominate the landscape. Trails were almost forgotten, except in parks and other protected areas. Today, however, Canadians are using trails in increasing numbers. Trails are either managed by organizations such as parks, municipalities and First Nations, or unmanaged. As of 2010, there were 278,576 km of managed trails in Canada. This distance is roughly the equivalent of traversing the country, from Cape Spear, Newfoundland and Labrador, to the Yukon-Alaska border, 50 times. The province with the largest managed trail network is Quebec. Just over 27 per cent of all managed Canadian trails (77,030 km) are found there.
The Beaufort Sea coast is low lying and subject to considerable scouring by ice and erosion by storm surges. The Canadian shelf and the Yukon/Alaskan shelf form the southern boundary of the Beaufort Sea, but they have significantly different widths and alignments.
Lake Ontario is 18,960 km2 (10,000 km2 in Canada), with a drainage area of 60,030 km2, an elevation of 75 m, a mean depth of 86 m (max 244 m), length 311 km and width 85 km. It is the smallest in surface area and most easterly of the Great Lakes and eighth-largest body of fresh water in North America. The lake receives most of its water supply from the other Great Lakes through the Niagara River and discharges into the St Lawrence River through the Kingston Basin at its northeast end. Other tributaries are the Genesee, Oswego and Black rivers in New York state and the Trent River in Ontario. (See also Largest Lakes in Canada.)
The Niagara Escarpment, in its Ontario portion, is 725 km long, covering 1923 km2, with a maximum height of 335 m.
Origins Lava tube caves, an important minor class, are formed by channelled outflow of molten lava in congealing flows. Sea caves most commonly result from erosion by waves.
The Joggins Fossil Cliffs are located in Nova Scotia, on the shores of Cumberland Basin in the upper Bay of Fundy.
This text is from the free Toronto in Time app, which was created by The Canadian Encyclopedia and is available from the App Store and the Google Play store. Visit its companion website, which is linked below, to explore all the features of the app online.
Georges Bank is a large submarine bank (250 km by 150 km) at the edge of the Atlantic continental shelf between Cape Cod and Nova Scotia. Typical water depths are 50-80 m, but in some areas the water shoals to 10 m and less.
The Saskatchewan River is 1,939 km long from the Rocky Mountains headwaters to Cedar Lake in central Manitoba. When including its longest tributary, the South Saskatchewan River, the Saskatchewan River is the fourth-longest river in Canada. It’s a major tributary to the Nelson River, ultimately draining into Hudson Bay. Its name is derived from the Cree word kisiskâciwanisîpiy meaning swift-flowing river. The Saskatchewan River was a major transportation route for First Nations for thousands of years and was an instrumental transportation and resource corridor during the fur trade and early European exploration.
The interplay of these ocean waters with freshwater runoff from land creates the conditions that support large biological production on Canada's continental shelves and embayments (see COASTAL LANDFORM; DRAINAGE BASIN).
Canada may be divided into seven physiographic regions: Arctic Lands, Cordillera, Interior Plains, Hudson Bay Lowland, Canadian Shield Forest Lands, St Lawrence Lowlands and Appalachia.