Canada (1)

Canada .
Canada is a very large country . It is over 600,000 sq kilometers larger than the United States . Over 5,000 km of border separate Canada and the United States.
Canada does not have nearly as many people as the United States, it has only a tenth as many.
Its climate helps to explain why there are so few people in so big land . The northern part of Canada is called Eskimo land and there are very cold winters. Only in the southern part and the west coast is the climate as mild as in the western part of the United States.
During the Ice Age almost all of Canada was covered time after time whit great sheets of ice. These sheets carried away much of Canada’s soil to the United States.
Parts of Canada were first settled by the French , part of it by the English .
Picturesque Quebec is the most French, of Canada’s big cities. Canada’s largest city, Montreal , is also largely French. Next to Paris in France it is the largest French-speaking city in the world.
Canada belongs to British Commonwealth of Nations. It rules itself in very much the way the United States. Its capital is Ottawa. The country is divided into provinces and territories. Both the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia are much bigger than the states of Texas.
Furs , farms, forests and fisheries make up much of Canada’s wealth . The country is also rich in minerals. Canada has copper , lead , silver , gold and other metals. The discovery of rich oil fields in Alberta in 1947 has made oil production one of Canada’s leading industries.
South of Newfoundland is one of the greatest fishing regions in the world.
Much of Canada is covered with forests. A great deal of the wood from the forests in Quebec is used for making paper. Western forests produce much timber .
The farms of eastern Canada are rather small. Potatoes are an important crop. Near the Great Lakes there are many orchards.
Stretching west from the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay, there are great prairies . Spring wheat is the chief crop but other crops are important, too.
West of the prairies there is a mountain wonderland. The Canadian Rockies are higher than the Rockies in the United States.
British Columbia has a climate much like the climate of southern England . The capital is the charming city of Victoria on Vancouver Island .
More than three-fourths of all the manufacturing that goes on in Canada is carried on in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, much of it in the cities of Montreal and Toronto . Montreal is Canada’s biggest city. Toronto is next in size.
It is easy to Canada to send its products abroad. Novas Scotia stretches far out into the Atlantic . Ocean- going ships travel up the St. Lawrence River to Montreal. The St. Lawrence Seaway makes Toronto and other cities on the Great Lakes into inland seaports.
The maple leave is the Canada’s symbol. It is on the flag and in 1974-1976 it was situated on the coins.