The Geography of Western Canada

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The Geography of Western Canada
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Introduction

• Geography is something that surrounds us on a
  daily basis.
• Geography looks at location, but it can also look
  and shape many other things that take place in
  your day to day life.
• i.e. weather, economy, and sports you choose to
  play.
• Geography explores human behaviour, and how
  humans react with their environment in certain
  situations.

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Introduction

• The Royal Geographic Society was founded in 1830
  in London, England.
• It had a goal to promote an important and
  entertaining branch of knowledge geography.
• Geographers try to unlock the mysteries of Earth.
• Geographers are interested in the why and how of
  the physical world, as opposed to, discovering
  unknown places.
• Geography draws on a wide variety of fields, such
  as climate, geology, hydrology, economics, and
  biology.
• While looking at the above it draws on spatial
  patterns on Earth in order to understand how
  human lives work.

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Introduction
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Importance of Place

• Geography begins with the posing of questions.
• Geographers use five organizing principles to
  help them gather, organize, and analyze their
  information.
• Places have a location.
• Places have physical and cultural
  characteristics.
• Places change.
• Places interact with other places.
• Places are in regions.

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Places Have a Location

• Location is the first step in the process of
  geography.
• Every place can be located in precise terms using
  latitude and longitude.
• Latitude the distance of any point north or
  south of the equator, measured up to 90 degrees.
• Longitude the distance of any point east or west
  of the Prime Meridian, measured up to 180
  degrees.
• Along with knowing longitude and latitude it is
  important to know the spatial location, and the
  understand the other four organizing principles
  that geographers use.

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Places Have a Location
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Places Have Physical and Cultural Characteristics

• Physical characteristics include the landforms
  and bodies of water found in a place, as well as
  its soil and mineral deposits.
• These impact how people live, and present
  advantages and disadvantages, or a combination of
  both.
• All human activity leaves a mark on the physical
  environment.
• These visual results of activity are known as the
  cultural landscape.
• People of different cultures usually impact the
  landscape in different ways.
• i.e. aboriginal peoples vs. white settlers.

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Places Have Physical and Cultural Characteristics
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Places Change

• Nothing in nature stays the same.
• Landforms, vegetation, political boundary's,
  patterns of settlement, all are changing all of
  the time.
• Geographers want to know how the natural
  environment changes through human actions.
• i.e. How does a highway affect the development of
  nearby real estate or industry?
• Knowledge of past changes help people to make
  informed decisions about future changes.

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Places Change
1960s
1965
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Places Change
1973
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Places Interact With Other Places

• A places size and location determined the level
  of contact it would have with the world in the
  past.
• With new technology contact between places has
  become easier, and now the most remote locations
  still have some form of contact with neighbouring
  communities and the rest of the world.
• Because of technology, the places we inhabit have
  impacts on one another.

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Places Are In Regions

• A region is a area where certain characteristics
  prevail.
• Regions allow for geographers to organize
  information based on Earths surface.
• Regions can also be based on politics and
  economic, as well as a bunch of other things.
• No two places in a region are the same, but they
  are similar enough to be classified together.

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Places Are In Regions
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Places Are In Regions
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The Physical Regions of Western Canada

• The landscape of Canada has made it difficult in
  the development of the country.
• Western Canada is dominated by three distinct
  regions.
• Canadian Shield.
• Interior Plains.
• Western Mountains.
• Rocky Mountains and Coastal Mountains.
• Each region has distinct geological features,
  landforms, and climatic conditions.

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The Physical Regions of Western Canada
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The Canadian Shield

• Geologically speaking, Canada is one of the
  oldest countries around.
• Shields are large masses of rock which are the
  oldest parts of the Earth.
• They are the hard rigid blocks around which the
  rest of the continents are formed.
• The Canadian Shield stretches from the Arctic
  islands around Hudson Bay to the Adirondack
  Mountains in the US, and east across Labrador.
• At one point in time the shield was a volcanic
  mountain range as high as the Himalayas.

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The Canadian Shield

• Over millions of years it has been weathered and
  eroded down to a landscape of exposed rock and
  lakes.
• The original make up of the shield was igneous
  rock, but this has changed by heat and/or
  pressure making it into metamorphic rock.
• These changes in the rock make up have made the
  shield a vast storehouse of mineral like copper,
  gold, lead, and nickel.
• As a result of the exposed rock, agriculture and
  large scale settlement have been difficult on the
  shield.

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The Canadian Shield
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Interior Plains

• The Interior Plains stretches from the Canadian
  Shield to the Rocky Mountains.
• It covers almost all of Alberta.
• The plains have been formed as eroded material
  from the shield was deposited in layers at its
  edges.
• The horizontal layers are made up of sedimentary
  rock.
• Millions of years ago when there was a tropical
  climate in the area, and water covered some of
  it, occasional flooding left deposits of plants
  and animals.
• The deposits have turned into fossil fuels like
  oil and natural gas, and potash.
• They were formed by being compressed between
  sedimentary layers of rock.

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Interior Plains
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The Western Mountains

• The western mountains are made up of parallel
  mountain ranges that are separated by a series of
  plateaus and valleys.
• The Rockies and the Coastal Mountains, along with
  the interior Plateau, were formed when plate
  collision caused the Earths crust to buckle
  lifting sections into the air.
• The pressure of the collision and plate tectonics
  also formed valleys, plateaus, and trenches.
• Glaciers and rivers sculpted the mountainous
  territory we see today.
• The sediments carried away by the rivers formed
  the rich river valley we know like the Fraser
  River Valley.
• They are rich in minerals like copper, gold,
  molybdenum, and coal.

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The Western Mountains
Pg. 101 Figure 3-11 of your text.
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The Climates of Western Canada

• Most of the areas in Western Canada experience a
  continental climate of temperature extremes, and
  low precipitation.
• Coastal areas, such as those in BC, experience
  maritime climate with mild temperature changes
  and high precipitation.
• Temperature and precipitation of communities
  depends on the location and local conditions of
  the community.

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Factors Affecting Temperature

• Latitude
• This determines the intensity and amount of
  sunlight an area receives
• Te farther north a community is the lower the
  angle the suns rays strike at.
• This also results in a greater seasonal variation
  in the length of daylight and night.
• The closer to the equator the warmer the weather
  because of a greater angle of the sun in the sky.

• Altitude
• The higher the altitude the lower the
  temperatures.
• For every 150 meters rise in altitude,
  temperature drops approx. 1 degree Celsius.

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Factors Affecting Temperature

• Distance from the Sea
• The surface of land heats and cools faster than
  water does.
• Interior areas will have more dramatic
  temperature variations as a result.
• Coastal areas tend to have more moderate
  variation in temperatures because they are by
  water.

• Wind Direction
• Winds coming from the ocean increase the
  moderating effect of the water on the
  temperature.
• The reverse is true for winds coming off land.
• Prevailing winds are those winds that are blowing
  most regularly.
• Western Canada normally has westerly (from the
  west) or northerly (from the north).
• West Coast communities are the only one in Canada
  that have winter temperatures above freezing.

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Factors Affecting Temperature

• Ocean Currents
• The currents are either warm or cold depending on
  there origin.
• They affect the temperature of land by either
  warming or heating the air blowing over them.
• Warm air absorbs more water than cold air.

• Precipitation
• Precipitation is determined by the distance from
  the sea, and the prevailing winds.
• Heavy precipitation is often confined to a season
  or seasons.
• Western Canada experiences three basis types of
  precipitation.
• Orographic, convectional, and frontal.

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Factors Affecting Temperature

• Orographic
• The prevailing westerly winds push warm most air
  up against the coastal mountains, allowing the
  air to cool and shrink creating precipitation.
• The air then warms coming down the other side of
  the mountainside creating an area called rain
  shadow.
• The same happen on the Rockies, but the
  precipitation is less, and in the winters the air
  warming coming down the easterly mountainsides
  creates Chinooks that can raise temperatures 20
  degrees in a mater of hours.

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Factors Affecting Temperature

• Convectional
• It is caused by convection currents in the
  atmosphere.
• Falls primarily on the prairies in the hot
  months.
• As the ground heats up it heats the air, and the
  warm air rises and expands meeting coolers air
  which then also warms, rises and expands.
• When the air begins to cool it forms clouds of
  rain or hail.
• It provides much needed moisture, but also can
  damage the crops.

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Factors Affecting Temperature

• Frontal
• Most of Canada lies in a zone between cold polar
  air from the north, and warm tropical air from
  the Gulf of Mexico.
• The two air masses cant not mix and where they
  meet is called a front.
• The warm, less dense air rises over the cold air,
  and as the warm air rises it condenses and forms
  clouds resulting in prolonged precipitation.
• There is more frontal activity during the winters
  because the two air masses have more variance,
  and the polar air extends farther south.
• Cyclonic storms result from fierce frontal
  activity, and they are push west to east by
  prevailing winds.

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Water Resources of Western Canada

• Most of the rivers and water sources start in the
  cordillera.
• High levels of precipitation and melting of
  snowpacks provide constant flow.
• The rivers flow east or west from the Rockies and
  the Coastal Mountains until they reach major body
  of water like the Pacific Ocean or Hudson Bay.
• Along the way they meet up with other bodies of
  water, river, lakes, etc.
• The abundance of water in Western Canada has made
  some people complacent.

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Water Resources of Western Canada

• Population and developments have created threats
  to water quality.
• i.e. Lower Fraser River Basin has been a dump sit
  for industrial and municipal sewage, and
  agricultural run-off.
• For many Canadians, water quality, and not water
  quantity, will be the issue in the future.

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Ecosystems and Biomes

• Biomes an ecological community of plants and
  animals extending over a large area.
• The environment of Western Canada is made up many
  different biomes.
• Each of the biomes has its own characteristics.
  This can be vegetation, and animal species.
• A biome contains a number of smaller ecosystems.
• Natural area where the life cycles of plant,
  animals, etc, are linked to their physical
  surroundings.
• Smaller ecosystems are made up of habitats.
• Habitats are places where plants and animals have
  adopted a specific set of conditions.
• Ecosystems are interdependent on each other.
• Altering one thing can set of chain reactions.

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The Western Biomes

• Boreal Forest
• Most of the region is made up of coniferous
  trees.
• Needle leaf evergreen trees are able to survive
  the cold winters, and the erratic precipitation.
• The needles do not freeze, and very little
  moisture is lost through them.
• They make the most of the growing season by
  starting early in the spring.
• The soil type of the region is known as podzol.
• It is acidic and not very fertile because of the
  lack of humus (remains of decomposed plants).
• Deer, moose, black bear, wolves, and other fur
  bearing animals inhabit this biome.
• Blue jays , owls, and other birds frequent the
  forests.

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The Western Biomes
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The Western Biomes

• Parkland
• It is a transitional area between the dry prairie
  grasslands and the coniferous forest region of
  the north.
• Natural vegetation is long grass, with isolated
  stands of trees.
• The trees are mainly aspen, willow, and pines.
• The long grass provides lots of humus after it
  decays over many years.
• In return the soil is rich and black.
• The parkland is the ideal region for growing
  wheat because of the rich soil and the sufficient
  precipitation.

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The Western Biomes

• The Prairie
• Sometimes called the grasslands.
• Covers an area between Winnipeg and Calgary.
• It is very dry in the southeast around the
  Alberta/Saskatchewan border.
• The driest of areas is know as Palliser Triangle.
• The prairie is sufficiently moist in the
  northwest to support ranching and agriculture,
  but not moist enough to support the growth of
  trees.

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The Western Biomes

• The Prairie cont
• Natural vegetation is short grasses, and some
  areas of long grass.
• Some indigenous grasses have been destroyed as a
  result of human activity.
• Human activity has also resulted in wind erosion.
• The soils of the region are brown in color and
  high in mineral content.
• The darker soil is ideal for growing wheat and
  grains.
• Common animals are gophers, ground squirrels,
  prairie dogs, hawks, owls, badgers, deer, and
  antelope.
• Bison were common before their extermination.

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The Western Biomes

• Interior Mountain Region
• Consists of a variety of different landforms.
• Meadows, plateaus, and mountains.
• Vegetation is highly varied, and includes pine
  forests, sub alpine forests, and in the high
  meadows, areas of tundra the are similar to the
  arctic with shrubs, lichens, and grass.
• The region has many different soil types.
• Soils of coniferous region on the mountains,
  prairie soils in the grasslands, and tundra soils
  in the meadows.
• Wild life consists of bears, deer, mountain
  goats, and sheep, as well as, owls, woodpeckers,
  and bluebirds.
• Canadas only preying mantis the ground mantis
  is found in this region, along with the
  rattlesnake.

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The Western Biomes
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The Western Biomes

• Coastal Forests
• These forests on the Pacific Northwest are rain
  forest, but they are coniferous trees.
• This makes them different from the other rain
  forest which have trees with a more broad leaf
  canopy.
• They receive most of their rain from November to
  March, and grow during the mild winters.
• The trees today mainly consist of Douglas firs,
  red cedars, and hemlock.
• The largest trees are close to 90 meters tall,
  with diameters of 1-2 meters.
• The soil and wildlife found in the region are
  similar to those of the boreal forests.

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The Cultural Landscape

• Environments that have been used and altered by
  humans are called cultural landscapes.
• Culture determines how people use the land.
• Opposing cultures may have different attitudes on
  how to use the land, and this may result in
  crisis.
• i.e. the extinction of the bison, or the conflict
  between the environmentalists and BC loggers.

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Settlement and Population

• The beginning of the 20th Century was when
  Western Canada first began to see the effect of
  large scale settlement.
• Prior to this the Native peoples of the land had
  used the environment they lived in without
  significantly changing it.
• They used the land and water resource where ever
  they lived in a way they respected the
  environment.
• The Laurier era brought large scale settlement to
  the Canadian West, and by doing so it upset the
  harmonious balance that had been in place for
  millennia.

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Settlement and Population

• Immigrants have changed the way the land looks by
  bringing their traditional ways of life.
• i.e. Métis farmers in Manitoba followed French
  practices of dividing the land into long narrow
  strips.
• Extensive farming, cattle ranching, mining,
  manufacturing, and urban development have al
  contributed to the alteration of the natural
  environment.
• The physical environment and economic
  possibilities play a role in where people decide
  to settle.
• Landforms and climate play roles in the permanent
  settlement of people.
• Flat land, mild winters, adequate precipitation,
  and good soil are some of the factors that often
  entice people to settle in an area.
• i.e. prairies and the interior of BC.

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Settlement and Population

• People go where they can find work.
• This means that other areas may experience
  growth, but it may not be as permanent as in
  other areas.
• Resource towns go through boom and bust phases.
• i.e. Barkerville, Uranium City.
• Resource towns do not employ as many people as
  the manufacturing and service industries, and
  this is why a majority f population is
  concentrated around major cities.
• ¾ of the population of Canada lives in urban
  centers.
• Resources affect the patterns of settlement.
• Soil type, energy resources, mineral, etc, all
  play a role in where people will settle.
• This becomes know as population distribution, and
  the number of people settling in an area is known
  as population density.
• Generally speaking, the bigger the urban center,
  the bigger the population density.

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Settlement and Population
1996
2001
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Boundaries The Lines on a Map

• The provincial and territorial boundaries are
  what geographers call artificial boundaries.
• Prior to European settlement, the Native peoples,
  Métis, early explorers, and fur trappers divided
  Western Canada by its natural boundaries.
• These boundaries are ill-suited for political
  purposes because leaders like to have clear and
  defined lines.
• As time past, the natural boundaries were
  replaced by political boundaries.
• In some cases dividing boundaries led to
  conflict.
• i.e. Alaskan Boundary dispute.

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Boundaries The Lines on a Map

• Natives in frontier regions did not have the
  power to draw line on a map, but in the last few
  decades this has changed.
• 1982 Constitutional Act addressed concerns with
  aboriginal title, and began to recognize it by
  law.
• This led to more aboriginal groups becoming
  successful in reclaiming control of their
  traditional territories.
• New line markings of First Nations land claims
  appear on some BC maps.

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Boundaries The Lines on a Map

• Under the control of the Hudson Bay Company, the
  west had very ill-defined boundaries.
• With the sale of Rupert's Land, and
  confederation, more specific boundaries needed to
  be established by the Canadian government.
• By 1949, provincial status had been granted to
  all areas south of 60 degrees north latitude.
• 1999, the division of the Northwest Territories
  into Nunavut and the Western Territory completed
  the expansion of self government.

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Boundaries The Lines on a Map

• Boundaries are not visible on the landscape, but
  they have big effect on peoples lives.
• They determine a wide variety of things like the
  taxes you will pay, the education you receive,
  the government you have, your laws, etc.
• Boundaries are challenged constantly.
• i.e. Northern Passage.
• Things like the North American Free Trade
  Agreement challenge the idea of boundaries as
  well.
• Where do national and international powers start
  and finish?

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Boundaries The Lines on a Map