Altitudes and The greatest alti tudes in Canada are in the Saint Elias range of mountains, a small group near the Alaska fron tier, not far from the Pacific Ocean. Mount Logan is the highest of these and is estimated at 19,539 feet. The next greatest elevations are in the southern portion of the Rocky Mountains and the parallel ranges immediately to the west, where several peaks exceed 12,000 feet, although only one, Mount Robson, possibly reaches 13,500. The height of the ranges west of the Rocky Mountains becomes less and less as they approach the Pacific Ocean, and in Vancouver Island the highest peak is under 7,500 feet. The next greatest altitudes are in the extreme east of the Laurentian plateau, in northern Labrador, where a range of hills occurs, bor dering on the Atlantic Ocean, which attains a height of 6,000 feet. Elsewhere in Labrador the Laurentian plateau seldom exceeds 1,800 feet, and on the west side of Hudson Bay the Laurentian area is lower and gradually merges in the central plain. The Appalachian region contains ranges of low hills nowhere exceeding 4,000 feet, which is only reached in the extrem ity of the Gaspe peninsula. The central plain rises in three steppes from the valley of the Red River, about 800 feet above sea-level, to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where it has an extreme elevation of 4,200 feet and an average elevation of about 3,000 feet. The Saint Lawrence lowlands are nowhere much higher than 1,000 feet, or about 500 feet above Lakes Huron and Erie, and sink gradually with the Saint Lawrence River to its mouth.
Water The distribution of land and water in Canada has rendered the interior continental area peculiarly accessible. The Gulf of Saint Lawrence is a large arm of the sea affording ready means of entrance from the east; and leads to the broad estuary of the Saint Lawrence River. Exploration naturally fol lowed this highway. No mountain barriers oc cur to obstruct or divert approach by the rivers Saint Lawrence and Ottawa to the chain of great lakes that extend to the very centre of the continent. The length of continuous water way from the Atlantic Ocean at the Straits of Belle-Isle to the head of Lake Superior is 2,388 miles. Similarly Hudson Bay, a huge land locked sea, communicating with the Atlantic by Hudson Strait, reaches even farther west than Lake Superior to the south of it. It was by way of Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay that the English explorers arrived at the great interior plains, just as the French voyageurs penetrated to the same region by the Saint Lawrence and the Great Lakes. The first systematic attempt at settlement of what is now the province of Manitoba, where the prairies begin, was by way of Hud son Bay, when Lord Selkirk established his colony of Highlanders at the junction of the Assiniboine and Red rivers in the first years of the 19th century. Two great waterways are found in the central area leading up from Hud son Bay and from the Arctic Ocean to the very base of the Rocky Mountains. These are the Nelson-Saskatchewan and the Mackenzie-Atha basaca river systems, both of which were well traveled highways for voyageurs and fur-trad ers long before settlements along the Saint Lawrence Valley had reached the Ontario pen insula. In the Appalachian region there is one river of considerable length. the Saint John, which flows across the ranges into the Bay of Fundy. The mountain region possesses its great rivers in the Columbia, the Fraser and the Yukon, all of which originate at the western base of the Rocky Mountains and empty into the Pacific. But the rivers of this region are obstructed by numerous and fierce rapids and have not afforded the same facilities for naviga tion as the rivers of the central and eastern areas. In recent years, however, the Yukon has become a great highway leading to the gold fields of Alaska and the Yukon Territory.
Climate and Vegetable Productions,— The climate of Canada has the usual character istics of a continental climate in its extremes of heat and cold, but the presence of vast bodies of water, Hudson Bay and the Great Lakes, in the very heart of the continent, has introduced mod ifications of temperature which differentiate Canada from other great continental areas.
Thus, the Laurentian lowlands enjoy a tem perate and fairly equable climate, and are wholly free from periods of drought. The
central prairies, moreover, though subject to extremes of temperature, obtain sufficient moisture for growing wheat, except in the ex treme southwest portion. Here an area of about 20,000 square miles forms part of the semi-arid region which has so great an exten sion south of the international boundary. The grassy plains are liable to frosts in the early and late summer, perhaps in consequence of the general slope down toward the Arctic Ocean, with no intervening chain of mountains. It has been found, however, that where the ground has been broken up for agriculture over consider able areas these unseasonable frosts do not oc cur, and at the same time there is a marked tendency to an increase in the average precipita tion. The western portion of the central plain enjoys milder winters than the eastern, owing to the phenomenon known as Chinook winds, which cross the mountain ranges from the west and descend upon the plain as warm, dry winds, evaporating moisture and raising the temperature. This contrast is even more marked in the north than in the south of the area In the mountain region great variations are presented both in temperature and humidity. The islands and the coast of the mainland up to the crest of the first range of mountains upon it have a very mild and very moist climate. The western slopes of the ranges farther inland also receive abundant rainfall and are clothed with dense forests. But the interior plateau receives very little moisture, and its altitude and dryness combine to give it extremes of temperature in summer and winter. The northern part of the Laurentian plateau on either side of Hudson Bay is, for climatic reasons, almost uninhabit able. The forests that clothe the southern por tion of the same plateau give place to grasses, sedges and mosses, and ice remains in the rivers and lakes throughout the brief summer. This tundra region, some of which has not yet been explored, covers an area of perhaps 200,000 square miles west of Hudson Bay, where it goes under the name of ethe Barren Grounds?) and half as much east of Hudson Bay, in the Labra dor peninsula. The climate of the Appalachian region is influenced by its proximity to the At lantic Ocean, and presents no peculiarities. There are three well-defined belts of vegetation in eastern and central Canada. The southern part of the central plain is a region of treeless, grassy prairies, once the home of countless buffalo: In the extreme north, on either side of Hudson Bay are the Arctic tundras, the Barren Grounds, where only mosses and other lower forms of vegetable life can exist, afford ing food to enormous herds of caribou and a smaller number of musk-oxen. Between these two treeless regions is the great forest belt which • covers the whole of eastern Canada and extends across the central plain to the moun tains, verging continually north in consequence of the decreasing severity of the winters, until in the valley of the Mackenzie River it reaches beyond the Arctic circle. In the northerly lat itudes the forest is composed chiefly of pine, spruces, tamarack and aspen poplar, but in its southern extension, and especially in the Saint Lawrence lowlands and the Appalachian region, deciduous trees, such as the maple, beech and ash, are mingled with the conifers and even replace them in the river valleys. Before the advent of the white men, a dense growth of forest covered the Appalachian region and the Laurentian lowlands, which have since been cleared to a great extent and submitted to agri tultural processes. This development is still going on, settlement is pushed farther and farther north, and forest is giving plate to farms wherever the soil is suitable. The prairie region is being converted to agricultural uses, even the semiarid corner being capable of cultivation by the aid of irrigation. The moun tain region, throughout almost its entire extent, is heavily wooded near the coast and on the western slopes of the inland range. The enor mous height and girth to which trees of some species, such as the Douglas fir and western cedar, may attain are well known. The river valleys and alluvial flats of the southern portion are suitable for agriculture, but the interior plateau does not receive enough moisture and is given over to ranching.