re surprises. If you leave the road at Brooks, Alberta, and drive north, you descend into the Red Deer River Valley. Here, in desert-like conditions, water and wind have created strange shapes in the sandstone called "hoodoos." The same forces of erosion have uncovered some of the largest concentrations of dinosaur fossils in the world.4. The Canadian ShieldA huge inland sea called Hudson Bay extends into the heart of Canada, and wrapped around this bay is a rocky region called the Canadian Shield. Canada's largest geographical feature, it stretches east to Labrador, south to Kingston on Lake Ontario and northwest as far as the Arctic Ocean. The Shield is considered the nucleus of the North American continent. Its gneiss and granite rocks are 3.5 billion years old, three-quarters the age of the Earth. Scraped by the advance and retreat of glaciers, the Shield has only a thin layer of soil that supports a boreal forest of spruce, fir, tamarack and pine. The region is a storehouse of minerals, including gold, silver, zinc, copper and uranium.5. The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence LowlandsSouthern Quebec and Ontario, the industrial heartland of Canada, contain Canada's two largest cities, Montreal and Toronto. In this small region, 50 percent of Canadians live and 70 percent of Canada's manufactured goods are produced. The region also has prime agricultural land, for example, the Niagara Peninsula. The large expanses of lakes Erie and Ontario extend the number of frost-free days, permitting the cultivation of grapes, peaches, pears and other fruits. The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence region is sugar maple country. In the autumn, the sugar maple leaves, Canada's national symbol, are ablaze in red, orange and gold. The sap is collected in spring and evaporated to make maple syrup and sugar, a culinary delicacy first prepared and used by the Aboriginal North American peoples.6. The Atlantic Provinces-Appalachian RegionNew Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Princ...
