Some of Canada's most extensive forest grows on the Shield. During the Ice Ages of the Cenozoic Era, the glaciers removed enormous amounts of soil, clay, rock and gravel. Today, most of the Shield is covered by only a thin layer of soil. Due to a result of this no vegetation has grown. Coniferous trees which are better suited to thin sandy soil cover most of the areas. There are thousands of lakes on the Canadian Shield because the igneous and metamorphic rock do not allow the water to pass through easily. As a result the water has formed depressions in the rock creating thousands of unsystematic lakes.

Location

    Canadian Shield, vast horseshoe-shaped physiographic region that covers central and eastern Canada and small parts of the northern United States. The shield extends in a great semicircle around Hudson Bay, reaching from the Arctic coast north of Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories to northern Québec and Labrador. The Canadian Shield is the largest physiographic region in Canada. It was formed as part of the earth's crust  3 billion years ago, and the hard, crystalline rocks of the shield are among the oldest in the world. In the late 19th century, the rockiness of the shield represented a major obstacle to the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, Canada's first transcontinental railway.
 

     The Canadian Shield occupies an area of 4.6 million sq km  in Canada, or nearly half the area of Canada. The region includes portions of six provinces (Newfoundland, Québec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta) and two territories (Northwest Territories and Nunavut). The shield also extends into the northern areas of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and New York in the United States.

This is a legend of all the regions of Canada, and as you can see the light green in this legend is the Canadian Shield Region.

Landforms

  Except for mountainous areas in Labrador and Baffin Island, the Canadian Shield forms a rough, rolling upland. Most of this upland ranges in elevation from 300 to 500 meters. In Labrador and Baffin Island, the shield has been tilted upwards, and elevations reach upwards of 1,500 m. Mount Thule on Baffin Island reaches a height of 1,711 m, while the highest point in the Torngat Mountains of Labrador is 1,652 m.

     The Canadian Shield is the ancient geological core of Canada. It was formed some 3 billion years ago when the earth cooled sufficiently to create a crust of solid rock. During the most recent Ice Age, which lasted until about 10,000 years ago, continental ice sheets covered the region, stripping away soil, depositing glacial drift, and creating many glacial lakes.
 

Climate

    Within the wide area covered by the shield in Canada, climates range from the sub arctic to the arctic. Sub arctic climates have cold winters but summers warm enough to permit some tree growth. Arctic climates have year-round low temperatures, which prevent trees from growing. In the sub arctic region, a boreal forest, consisting of black and white spruce, birch, and along its southern edge, aspen, covers the shield. In the arctic areas, the natural vegetation changes to the low-lying grasses, heaths, and mosses of the tundra. Black bears, brown fox, and beavers occupy the sub arctic zone, while polar bears and arctic fox live in the arctic zone. Caribou migrate to the arctic in the summer to feed on the lush tundra plants and migrate southward in the winter to the boreal forest.
 

Industrial

    The Canadian Shield has three major natural resources: forests, minerals, and water. The commercial forests are found in the provinces of Québec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. The main minerals are copper, iron, lead, nickel, gold, silver, uranium, and zinc. In the 1990s commercial diamond mines began operating in the Northwest Territories. The extensive rivers and lakes of the region make it an important source of hydroelectric power. The Canadian Shield contains very little agricultural land.

Lowlands - Link

    The Canadian Shield is surrounded by three major lowlands - namely, the Interior plains, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands, and the Hudson Bay-Artic Lowlands. These lowlands were formed due to the eroded sediments of the shield, which then settled into the seas that existed millions of years ago. However all these lowlands were not formed at the same time. So the sedimentary rocks found in the different regions are of different ages.

Highlands - Link

    Canada's three highland areas lie north, east and west of the shield and lowland areas. Each one is different as they each are formed differently and have different past

1. Appalachian Mountain
2. The Innutian Mountain
3. Western Cordillera

LINKS - Link

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