1.
Northern Canada
–
Northern Canada, colloquially the North, is the vast northernmost region of Canada variously defined by geography and politics. Politically, the term refers to three territories of Canada, Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, similarly, the Far North may refer to the Canadian Arctic, the portion of Canada north of the Arctic Circle and lies east of Alaska and west of Greenland. This area covers about 39 percent of Canadas total land area, for some purposes, Northern Canada may also include Northern Quebec and Northern Labrador. These reckonings somewhat depend on the concept of nordicity, a measure of so-called northernness that other Arctic territories share. Canada is the northernmost country in the Americas and roughly 80% of its 35 million inhabitants are concentrated along its border with the United States. Combined with the fact that all of the country experiences severely cold winters along with short and relatively cool summers. Due to the concentration of its population along the border. Southern Canada is therefore considered to be a region only when it is contrasted against or viewed from the North, as a social rather than political region, the Canadian north is often subdivided into two distinct regions based on climate, the near north and the far north. The different climates of these two regions result in different vegetation, and therefore very different economies, settlement patterns. The near north or subarctic is mostly synonymous with the Canadian boreal forest and this area has traditionally been home to the Indigenous peoples of the Subarctic, that is the First Nations, who were hunters of moose, freshwater fishers and trappers. This region was involved in the North American fur trade during its peak importance. The area was part of Ruperts Land or the North-Western Territory under the nominal control of the Hudsons Bay Company from 1670–1869. The HBCs claim was purchased by the Canadian government in 1869 and this opened the region to non-Native settlement, as well as to forestry, mining, and oil and gas drilling. Today several million people live in the north, around 15% of the Canadian total. The far north is synonymous with the north of the tree line. This area is home to the various sub-groups of the Inuit and these are people who have traditionally relied mostly on hunting marine mammals and caribou, mainly barren-ground caribou, as well as fish and migratory birds. This area was somewhat involved in the fur trade, but was influenced by the whaling industry. Very few non-Aboriginal people have settled in areas, and the residents of the far north represent less than 1% of Canadas total population
2.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Queen Elizabeth Islands
–
The Queen Elizabeth Islands are the northernmost cluster of islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, split between Nunavut and Northwest Territories in Northern Canada. The Queen Elizabeth Islands contain approximately 14% of the global glacier, the islands, together 419,061 km2 in area, were renamed as a group after Elizabeth II on her coronation as Queen of Canada in 1953. The islands cover an area approximating to the shape of a triangle, bounded by the Nares Strait on the east, Parry Channel on the south. Most are uninhabited although the Natural Resources Canadas Climate Change Geoscience Program Earth Sciences Sector, has monitors on the islands. In 1969 Panarctic Oils, now part of Suncor began operating exploration oil wells in the Sverdrup and Franklinian basins and it ceased production in the 1970s. At the 2013 GeoConvention the Arctic Islands region were called Canadas perpetual last petroleum exploration frontier and these islands were known as the Parry Archipelago for over 130 years. They were first named after British Arctic explorer Sir William Parry, since the renaming of the archipelago in 1953, the term Parry Islands continued to be used for its southwestern part. The regional break down of the archipelago is therefore as follows, Ellesmere Island Sverdrup Islands Parry Islands Ellesmere Island is the northernmost, the Sverdrup Islands are located west of Ellesmere Island and north of Norwegian Bay. South of Lancaster Sound, Viscount Melville Sound and McClure Strait are the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Many of the islands are among the largest in the world and they consist of Silurian and Carboniferous rocks covered with tundra. With a population of less than 400, the islands are nearly uninhabited, there are only three permanently inhabited places in the islands. The two municipalities are the hamlets of Resolute, on Cornwallis Island, and Grise Fiord, on Ellesmere Island, eureka, a small research base on Ellesmere Island, has a population of zero but at least 8 staff on a continuous rotational basis. Abandoned Permanent Settlement Seasonally Occupied Formerly manned stations were Mould Bay on Prince Patrick Island, Isachsen on Ellef Ringnes Island, abandoned settlements are Dundas Harbour on Devon Island and Craig Harbour on Ellesmere Island. Until 1999, the Queen Elizabeth Islands were part of the Baffin Region of the Northwest Territories, the rest remained with the now-reduced Northwest Territories. Borden Island, Mackenzie King Island and Melville Island were divided between the two territories, Prince Patrick Island, Eglinton Island and Emerald Island are the only notable islands that are now completely part of the Northwest Territories. Below the level of the territory, there is the level of administration. On that level, there are two municipalities, Resolute and Grise Fiord, with an aggregate area of 450 km2. The remaining 99.89 percent are unincorporated area, with a census 2006 population of five, according to the Atlas of Canada there are 34 larger and 2,092 smaller islands in the archipelago
4.
Canadian Arctic Archipelago
–
The Canadian Arctic Archipelago, also known as the Arctic Archipelago, is a group of islands north of the Canadian mainland. The Canadian Arctic Archipelago is showing some effects of global warming, British claims on the islands were based on the explorations in the 1570s by Martin Frobisher. Canadian sovereignty was only over island portions that drained into Foxe Basin, Hudson Bay. Canadian sovereignty over all of the islands was not established until the 1880 transfer by Britain to Canada of the remaining islands, the District of Franklin – established in 1895 – comprised almost all of the archipelago, the district was dissolved upon the creation of Nunavut in 1999. Canada claims all the waterways of the Northwestern Passages as Canadian Internal Waters, however the United States, disagreement over the passages status has raised Canadian concerns about environmental enforcement, national security, and general sovereignty. Hans Island, in the Nares Strait east of Ellesmere Island, is a territory contested between Canada and Denmark. The archipelago extends some 2,400 km longitudinally and 1,900 km from the mainland to Cape Columbia, the northernmost point on Ellesmere Island. It is bounded on the west by the Beaufort Sea, on the northwest by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by Greenland, Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, and on the south by Hudson Bay and the Canadian mainland. The various islands are separated from other and the continental mainland by a series of waterways collectively known as the Northwestern Passages. Two large peninsulas, Boothia and Melville, extend northward from the mainland, the archipelago consists of 36,563 islands, of which 94 are classified as major islands, being larger than 130 km2, and cover a total area of 1,400,000 km2. The climate of the islands is arctic, and the terrain consists of tundra except in mountainous areas, most of the islands are uninhabited, human settlement is extremely thin and scattered, being mainly coastal Inuit settlements on the southern islands. Islands not on map British Arctic Territories List of Canadian islands by area List of islands of Canada
5.
Canada
–
Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
6.
Provinces and territories of Canada
–
Canadas geography is divided into administrative divisions known as provinces and territories that are responsible for delivery of sub-national governance. Over its history, Canadas international borders have changed several times, the ten provinces are Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. Several of the provinces were former British colonies, Quebec was originally a French colony, the three territories are Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon, which govern the rest of the area of the former British North America. Together, the provinces and territories make up the worlds second-largest country by area, the powers flowing from the Constitution Act are divided between the federal government and the provincial governments to exercise exclusively. In modern Canadian constitutional theory, the provinces are considered to be co-sovereign divisions, the territories are not sovereign, but simply part of the federal realm, and have a commissioner who represents the federal government. Notes, There are three territories in Canada, unlike the provinces, the territories of Canada have no inherent sovereignty and have only those powers delegated to them by the federal government. They include all of mainland Canada north of latitude 60° north and west of Hudson Bay, the following table lists the territories in order of precedence. Prior to Confederation, Ontario and Quebec were united as the Province of Canada, over the following years, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island were added as provinces. The Hudsons Bay Company controlled large swathes of western Canada referred to as Ruperts Land and the North-Western Territory until 1870, subsequently, the area was re-organized into the province of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. The remaining Arctic islands were transferred by Britain to Canada in 1880,1898 saw the Yukon Territory, later renamed simply as Yukon, carved from the parts of the Northwest Territories surrounding the Klondike gold fields. On September 1,1905, a portion of the Northwest Territories south of the 60th parallel north became the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. In 1912, the boundaries of Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba were expanded northward, Manitobas to the 60° parallel, Ontarios to Hudson Bay, in 1907, Newfoundland acquired dominion status. In the middle of the Great Depression in Canada with Newfoundland facing a period of economic crisis. In 2001, it was officially renamed Newfoundland and Labrador, in 1903, the Alaska Panhandle Dispute fixed British Columbias northwestern boundary. This was one of two provinces in Canadian history to have its size reduced. In 1999, Nunavut was created from the portion of the Northwest Territories. Yukon lies in the portion of The North, while Nunavut is in the east. All three territories combined are the most sparsely populated region in Canada, covering 3,921,739 km2 in land area and they are often referred to as a single region, The North, for organisational and economic purposes
7.
Northwest Territories
–
The Northwest Territories is a territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately 1,144,000 km2 and its estimated population as of 2016 is 44,291. Yellowknife became the capital in 1967, following recommendations by the Carrothers Commission. The Northwest Territories are bordered by Canadas two other territories, Nunavut to the east and Yukon to the west, and by the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan to the south. The name is descriptive, adopted by the British government during the era to indicate where it lay in relation to Ruperts Land. It is shortened from North-Western Territory, in Inuktitut, the Northwest Territories are referred to as ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊᖅ, beautiful land. There was some discussion of changing the name of the Northwest Territories after the splitting off of Nunavut, one proposal was Denendeh, as advocated by the former premier Stephen Kakfwi, among others. One of the most popular proposals for a new name – one to name the territory Bob – began as a prank, in the end a poll conducted prior to division showed that strong support remained to keep the name Northwest Territories. This name arguably became more appropriate following division than it had been when the territories extended far into Canadas north-central and it possibly meets Manitoba at a quadripoint to the extreme southeast, though surveys have not been completed. It has an area of 1,183,085 km2. Territorial islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago include Banks Island, Borden Island, Prince Patrick Island and its highest point is Mount Nirvana near the border with Yukon at an elevation of 2,773 m. The Northwest Territories extends for more than 1,300,000 km2 and has a large climate variant from south to north, the southern part of the territory has a subarctic climate, while the islands and northern coast have a polar climate. Summers in the north are short and cool, with highs in the mid teens Celsius. Winters are long and harsh, daytime highs in the mid −20 °C, extremes are common with summer highs in the south reaching 36 °C and lows reaching into the negatives. In winter in the south, it is not uncommon for the temperatures to reach −40 °C, in the north, temperatures can reach highs of 30 °C, and lows can reach into the low negatives. In winter in the north it is not uncommon for the temperatures to reach −50 °C, thunderstorms are not rare in the south. In the north they are rare, but do occur. Tornadoes are extremely rare but have happened with the most notable one happening just outside Yellowknife that destroyed a communications tower, the Territory has a fairly dry climate due to the mountains in the west
8.
Nunavut
–
Nunavut is the newest, largest, and northernmost territory of Canada. The creation of Nunavut resulted in the first major change to Canadas political map since the incorporation of the province of Newfoundland, Nunavut comprises a major portion of Northern Canada, and most of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Its vast territory makes it the fifth-largest country subdivision in the world, the capital Iqaluit, on Baffin Island in the east, was chosen by the 1995 capital plebiscite. Other major communities include the regional centres of Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay and it is Canadas only geo-political region that is not connected to the rest of North America by highway. Nunavut is the largest in area and the second least populous of Canadas provinces and territories. One of the worlds most remote, sparsely settled regions, it has a population of 35,944, mostly Inuit, spread over an area of just over 1,750,000 km2, Nunavut is also home to the worlds northernmost permanently inhabited place, Alert. A weather station farther down Ellesmere Island, Eureka, has the lowest average temperature of any Canadian weather station. Nunavut means our land in Inuktitut, Nunavut covers 1,877,787 km2 of land and 160,935 km2 of water in Northern Canada. This makes it the fifth largest subnational entity in the world, if Nunavut were a country, it would rank 15th in area. It also shares borders with Greenland and the provinces of Quebec, Ontario. Nunavuts highest point is Barbeau Peak on Ellesmere Island, the population density is 0.019 persons/km2, one of the lowest in the world. By comparison, Greenland has approximately the area and nearly twice the population. Nunavut experiences a climate in most regions, owing to its high latitude. In more southerly continental areas very cold climates can be found. The region now known as Nunavut has supported an indigenous population for approximately 4,000 years. Most historians identify the coast of Baffin Island with the Helluland described in Norse sagas, the materials were collected in five seasons of excavation at Cape Tanfield. Scholars determined that these provide evidence of European traders and possibly settlers on Baffin Island and they seem to indicate prolonged contact, possibly up to 1450. So you have to consider the possibility that as remote as it may seem, the ore turned out to be worthless, but Frobisher made the first recorded European contact with the Inuit
9.
Enclave and exclave
–
An enclave is a territory, or a part of a territory, that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state. Territorial waters have the same attributes as land, and enclaves may therefore exist within territorial waters. An exclave is a portion of a state or territory geographically separated from the part by surrounding alien territory. Enclave is sometimes used improperly to denote a territory that is partly surrounded by another state. Vatican City and San Marino, enclaved by Italy, and Lesotho, unlike an enclave, an exclave can be surrounded by several states. The Azeri exclave of Naxçıvan is an example of an exclave. Semi-enclaves and semi-exclaves are areas that, except for possessing an unsurrounded sea border, Enclaves and semi-enclaves can exist as independent states, while exclaves always constitute just a part of a sovereign state. A pene-enclave is a part of the territory of one country that can be approached conveniently — in particular by wheeled traffic — only through the territory of another country, pene-enclaves are also called functional enclaves or practical enclaves. Many pene-exclaves partially border their own territorial waters, a pene-enclave can also exist entirely on land, such as when intervening mountains render a territory inaccessible from other parts of a country except through alien territory. A commonly cited example is the Kleinwalsertal, a part of Vorarlberg, Austria. The word enclave is French and first appeared in the century as a derivative of the verb enclaver. In law, this created a servitude of passage for the benefit of the owner of the surrounded land, the first diplomatic document to contain the word enclave was the Treaty of Madrid, signed in 1526. Later, the term began to be used also to refer to parcels of countries, counties, fiefs, communes, towns, parishes. This French word eventually entered the English and other languages to denote the same concept although local terms have continued to be used, in India, the word pocket is often used as a synonym for enclave. In British administrative history, subnational enclaves were usually called detachments or detached parts, in English ecclesiastic history, subnational enclaves were known as peculiars. The word exclave, modeled on enclave, is a extension of the concept of enclave. Enclaves exist for a variety of historical, political and geographical reasons, in particular, this state of affairs persisted into the 19th century in the Holy Roman Empire, and these domains exhibited many of the characteristics of sovereign states. Prior to 1866 Prussia alone consisted of more than 270 discontiguous pieces of territory, thus, over time enclaves have tended to be eliminated. This exchange thus effectively de-enclaved another two dozen second-order enclaves and one third-order enclave, eliminating 197 of the Indo-Bangladesh enclaves in all, the residents in these enclaves had complained of being effectively stateless
