Download The major agricultural regions of the Prairie Provinces and the St

US Canada Chapter 6 Overview of chapter
The major agricultural regions of the Prairie Provinces and the St. Lawrence Lowlands are important to
the economy of Canada .
The northern coast of Alaska has the largest oil reserves in all of North America – even more than the
Gulf of Mexico.
The area from Texas through Kansas is known as Tornado Alley; while the Gulf Coast and East Coast of
the US is known for hurricanes.
The Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway is one of North America’s greatest transportation/shipping
routes.
The St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes are the only real natural divisions between the two countries.
Since these waterways are important transportation and manufacturing centers for both countries, they
would be more likely to work together as trade partners to benefit both countries.
Due to latitude location, the United States has a much greater variety of climates than does Canada. Much
of the Canadian climate is very cold.
Canada’s geography and climate make vast areas of the country difficult for people to live in. The
Canadian Shield, a huge region of ancient rock, is very rugged. As a result, more than half of the
country’s population lives in the smallest land region, the St. Lawrence Lowlands. Also, the very cold
climate in much of the country limits population growth. The United States has about 10 times as many
people as Canada.
The land covered by the Canadian Shield is so rugged that very few people live in this region. But it is an
area with much mineral wealth.
A huge plains area lies between the Rockies and the Appalachians – in both the United States and
Canada. The rich soil is very good for farming.
When immigrant farmers came to North America in 1800, the settlers would have to decide where to live.
A farmer in the United States would have settled in an area with rich soil, a mild climate, and access to
rivers or other bodies of water. The eastern and southern coastal plains or the Great Plains were popular
areas for farmers to live. In Canada, a farmer would probably have settled in the St. Lawrence Lowlands,
where the soil is fertile and there is access to water routes for trade and shipping.
Rivers that are used to make electricity – hydroelectric power.
Both the United States and Canada have four major kinds of plant life: grassland, desert scrub, tundra, and
forest.
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A huge, slow-moving sheet of ice is a glacier.
In the Arctic, a cold, dry region called the tundra is covered with snow for more than half the
year.
The surface of permafrost, which is permanently frozen subsoil, thaws only during the Arctic
summer.
A region of flat or rolling land covered with grasses is a prairie.
The silt that is left by rivers after a flood is alluvial soil.
The continental divide is the boundary separating rivers flowing toward opposite sides of a
continent.
Irrigation is watering farmland by artificial methods