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How to Summarize...
1. Read the article
2. Re-read the article and identify the main ideas and supporting facts
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3. Write the summary, begin with an opening sentence which identifies the main
idea.
4. Include some supporting facts for the main idea.
5. Edit your work before you hand it in.
* Your summary should only be a paragraph in length.
When one sketches Canada, several large geographic units stand out. The first to emerge,
because of both its venerable age and its central position around which everything else is
arranged, is the Canadian Shield. From its throne in east-central Canada, it extends its
hills and rocky plateaus over a good half of the country. All around this base extend
shelves whose rocky layers, of more recent origin, were deposited by seas that no longer
exist.
To the east is the narrow plain of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence; to the west, the
rolling plains; to the centre, the Hudson Bay lowlands; and to the north, the Arctic
lowlands. Together, these plains cover one quarter of the territory. Then, like sentinels
posted at the three gates to Canada, mountain chains arise: the aging Appalachians to
the east, the proud cordillera to the west and the barren lands to the north. The last
geographic unit consists of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic continental shelves—the
submerged part of the continent. Even though invisible to us, it is of great importance for
Canada because of the immense resources that it contains.
As if in response to accumulated winters of ice and snow and a desire to escape from the
weight of the polar ice cap, the people of Canada press against their southern boundary.
In 2002, most of Canada's population of 31.4 million lived within 200 kilometers of the
United States. In fact, the inhabitants of our three biggest cities—Toronto, Montréal and
Vancouver—can drive to the border in less than two hours. Thousands of kilometers to
the north, our polar region—the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut—is
relatively empty, embracing 41% of our landmass but only 0.3% of our population.
Human habitation in the solitary north clings largely to scattered settlements: villages
among vast expanses of virgin ice, snow, tundra and taiga. Canadians sometimes boast
that, with only three people per square kilometer, we have one of the lowest population
densities in the world. In our highly agricultural, industrial and urban south, however,
population densities are similar to those of many regions in the United States.