I’m sure you’ve travelled between Eastern Ontario and Kingston, using Highway 2, or 401 (MacDonald-Cartier Freeway), or CN railway tracks, or even the St. Lawrence River (as we’ve done in our canoe).Unless you were asleep, or diddling on your device, you must have noticed some fascinating changes in the landscape, vegetation and land use. Here’s where I put aside my trademark Tilley and don my retired 1959-1994 teacher hat. Geography was my specialty.
From our location in Eastern Ontario (Cornwall for most Seaway News readers) we see fields of corn, soybeans, more corn, oats, barley, and hay for livestock. Passing Morrisburg, Iroquois, Prescott…no change. Then, approaching Brockville are layers of gray, stratified rocks; early ones are horizontal, the ones further west are tilted up.
Then we see dense, dark, generally unstratified bedrock. In an attempt to keep the 401 relatively straight and flat, drills created hundreds of narrow shafts in the almost impervious Canadian Shield rock. Then, thousands of tons of TNT created mountains of rubble to be pushed aside.
Somewhere east of Kingston, there is an opposite transition. The dense, dark, generally unstratified bedrock gives way to layers of gray, stratified rocks; the ones on the east side are tilted up, the ones further west are horizontal.
That trip by car, train or canoe has taken you across the Canadian Shield. If that trip had been along the American side of the river, the very same transition takes place. Yes, the Canadian Shield is also in the United States. There, they call it The Adirondacks.
Geography lesson over. Thanks to the undeniable facts of Geography, and Geology 101, Canada could be justified in annexing that extension of the Canadian Shield into New York as our eleventh province! The new, peacefully annexed province would welcome Canadians who had shunned trips to the USA ever since ‘DJT’ returned to claim the crown and threaten to make Canada his 51st state. Knowledge of basic grade 9 Geology could justify the return of our Canadian Shield. Wrapped in green paper, tied with a vine stem, and decorated with a sprig of tamarack, what a wonderful Christmas present for Canada that would be.
L’article Back to its rightful owners! The Adirondacks would make a good 11th province est apparu en premier sur Cornwall Seaway News.
