Jedediah Smith
Jedediah Strong Smith, was a clerk, hunter, author and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the North American West, the Southwest during the early 19th century. After 75 years of obscurity following his death, Smith was rediscovered as the American whose explorations led to the use of the 20-mile -wide South Pass as the dominant point of crossing the Continental Divide for pioneers on the Oregon Trail. Coming from a modest family background, Smith traveled to St. Louis and joined William H. Ashley and Andrew Henry's fur trading company in 1822. Smith led the first documented exploration from the Salt Lake frontier to the Colorado River. From there, Smith's party became the first United States citizens to cross the Mojave Desert into what is now the state of California but which at that time was part of Mexico. On the return journey and his companions were the first U. S. citizens to explore and cross the Sierra Nevada and the treacherous Great Basin Desert. In the following year and his companions were the first U. S. explorers to travel north from California to reach the Oregon Country.
Surviving three Native American massacres and one bear mauling, Jedediah Smith's explorations and documented travels were important resources to American westward expansion. In March 1831, while in St. Louis, Smith requested of Secretary of War John H. Eaton a federally funded exploration of the West, but to no avail. Smith informed Eaton. In May and his partners launched a planned para-military trading party to Santa Fe. On May 27, while searching for water in present-day southwest Kansas, Smith went missing, it was learned some weeks that he had been killed during an encounter with the Comanche – his body was never recovered. After his death, Smith's memory and his accomplishments were forgotten by Americans. At the beginning of the 20th century and historians made efforts to recognize and study his achievements. In 1918, a book by Harrison Clifford Dale was published covering Ashley-Smith western explorations. In 1935, Smith's summary autobiography was listed in a biographical dictionary. Smith's first comprehensive biography by Maurice S. Sullivan was published in 1936.
A popular Smith biography by Dale Morgan, published in 1953, established Smith as an authentic national hero. Smith's map of the West in 1831 was used by the U. S. Army, including western explorer John C. Frémont during the early 1840s. Smith was born in Jericho, now Bainbridge, Chenango County, New York, on January 6, 1799, to Jedediah, 1st and Sally Strong, both of whom were descended from families that came to New England from England during the Puritan emigration between 1620 and 1640. Smith received an adequate English instruction, learned some Latin, was taught how to write decently. Around 1810, Smith's father, who owned a general store, was caught up in a legal issue involving counterfeit currency after which the elder Smith moved his family west to Erie County, Pennsylvania. At the age of 13, Smith worked as a clerk on a Lake Erie freighter, where he learned business practices and met traders returning from the far west to Montreal; this work gave Smith an ambition for adventurous wilderness trade.
According to Dale L. Morgan, Smith's love of nature and adventure came from his mentor, Dr. Titus G. V. Simons, a pioneer medical doctor, on close terms with the Smith family. Morgan speculated that Simons gave the young Smith a copy of Meriwether Lewis's and William Clark's 1814 book of their 1804–1806 expedition to the Pacific, according to legend Smith carried this journal on all of his travels throughout the American West. Smith would provide Clark, who had become Superintendant of Indian Affairs, much information from his own expeditions into the West. In 1817, the Smith family moved westward again to Ohio and settled in Green Township in what is present-day Ashland County. Coming from a family of modest means, Smith struck out to make his own way, he may have left his family in search of a trade or employment a year prior to their settlement in Green Township. In 1822, Smith was living in St. Louis; the same year Smith responded to an advertisement in the Missouri Gazette placed by Gen. William H. Ashley.
General Ashley and Major Andrew Henry, veterans of the War of 1812, had established a partnership to engage in the fur trade and were looking for "One Hundred" "Enterprising Young Men" to explore and trap in the Rocky Mountains. Superintendent of Indian Affairs William Clark had granted Ashley-Henry license to trade with Native Americans in the Upper Missouri and he encouraged them to compete with the powerful British fur trade in the Pacific Northwest. Smith, now a 6-foot-tall, blue-eyed 23-year-old with a commanding presence, impressed General Ashley to hire him. In late spring, Smith started up the Missouri River on the keel boat Enterprize, which sank three weeks into the journey. Smith and the other men waited at the site of the wreck for a replacement boat and foraging for food. Ashley brought up another boat with an additional 46 men and upon proceeding upriver, Smith got his first glimpse of the western frontier, coming into contact with the Sioux and Arikara. On October 1, Smith reached Fort Henry at the mouth of the Yellowstone River, which had just been built by Major Henry and the men that he had led up earlier.
Smith and some other men continued up the Missouri to the mouth of the Musselshell River in central Montana, where they built a camp from which to trap through the winter. The next spring, Major Henry ordered Smith to go back down the Missouri to the Grand River to take a message to Ashley to buy horses f
Nez Perce people
The Nez Perce are an Indigenous people of the Plateau who have lived on the Columbia River Plateau in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States for a long time. Members of the Sahaptin language group, the Niimíipuu were the dominant people of the Columbia Plateau for much of that time after acquiring the horses that led them to breed the appaloosa horse in the 18th century. Prior to "first contact" with Western civilization the Nimiipuu were economically and culturally influential in trade and war, interacting with other indigenous nations in a vast network from the western shores of Oregon and Washington, the high plains of Montana, the northern Great Basin in southern Idaho and northern Nevada. After first contact, the name "Nez Perce" was given to the Niimíipuu and the nearby Chinook people by French explorers and trappers; the name means "pierced nose", but only the Chinook used that form of decoration. Today they are a federally recognized tribe, the Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho, govern their Indian reservation in Idaho through a central government headquartered in Lapwai, Idaho known as the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee.
They are one of five federally recognized tribes in the state of Idaho. Some still speak their traditional language, the Tribe owns and operates two casinos along the Clearwater River in Idaho in Kamiah and outside of Lewiston, health clinics, a police force and court, community centers, salmon fisheries, radio station, other things that promote economic and cultural self-determination. Cut off from most of their horticultural sites throughout the Camas Prairie by an 1863 treaty, confinement to reservations in Idaho and Oklahoma Indian Territory after the Nez Perce War of 1877, Dawes Act of 1887 land allotments, the Nez Perce remain as a distinct culture and political economic influence within and outside their reservation. Today, hatching and eating salmon is an important cultural and economic strength of the Nez Perce through full ownership or co-management of various salmon fish hatcheries, such as the Kooskia National Fish Hatchery in Kooskia, Idaho or the Dworshak National Fish Hatchery in Orofino, Idaho.
Their name for themselves is Nimíipuu, meaning, "The People", in their language, part of the Sahaptin family. Nez Percé is an exonym given by French Canadian fur traders who visited the area in the late 18th century, meaning "pierced nose". English-speaking traders and settlers adopted the name in turn. Since the late 20th century, the Nez Perce identify most as Niimíipuu in Sahaptin; the Lakota/ Dakota named them the Watopala, or Canoe people, from Watopa. However, after Nez Perce became a more common name, they changed it to Watopahlute; this comes from pahlute, nasal passage and is a play on words. If translated it would come out as either "Nasal Passage of the Canoe" or "Nasal Passage of the Grass"; the tribe uses the term "Nez Perce", as does the United States Government in its official dealings with them, contemporary historians. Older historical ethnological works and documents use the French spelling of Nez Percé, with the diacritic; the original French pronunciation is, with three syllables.
The interpreter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition mistakenly identified this people as the Nez Perce when the team encountered the tribe in 1805. Writing in 1889, anthropologist Alice Fletcher, who the U. S. government had sent to Idaho to allot the Nez Perce Reservation, explained the mistaken naming. She wrote, It is never easy to come at the name of an Indian or of an Indian tribe. A tribe has always at least two names. All the tribes living west of the Rocky Mountains were called "Chupnit-pa-lu", which means people of the pierced noses; the tribes on the Columbia river used to pierce the nose and wear in it some ornament as you have seen some old fashioned white ladies wear in their ears. Lewis and Clark had with them an interpreter whose wife was a Shoshone or Snake woman and so it came about that when it was asked "What Indians are these?" the answer was "They are'Chupnit-pa-lu'" and it was written down in the journal. In his journals, William Clark referred to the people as the Chopunnish, a transliteration of a Sahaptin term.
According to D. E. Walker in 1998, writing for the Smithsonian, this term is an adaptation of the term cú·pʼnitpeľu; the term is formed from cú · peľu. By contrast, the Nez Perce Language Dictionary has a different analysis than did Walker for the term cúpnitpelu; the prefix cú- means "in single file". This prefix, combined with the verb -piní, "to come out". With the suffix of -pelú, meaning "people or inhabitants of". Together, these three elements: cú- + -piní + pelú = cúpnitpelu, or "the People Walking Single File Out of the Forest". Nez Perce oral tradition indicates the name "Cuupn'itpel'uu" meant "we walked out of the woods or walked out of the mountains" and referred to the time before the Nez Perce had horses; the Nez Perce language, or Niimiipuutímt, is a Sahaptian language related to the several dialects of Sahaptin. The Sahaptian sub-family is one of the branches of the Plateau Penutian family, which in turn may be related to a larger Penutian g
Oregon City, Oregon
Oregon City is the county seat of Clackamas County, United States, located on the Willamette River near the southern limits of the Portland metropolitan area. Established in 1829 by the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1844 it became the first U. S. city west of the Rocky Mountains to be incorporated. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 31,859. Known in recent decades as the site of several large paper mills on the Willamette River, the city played a significant role in the early history of the Oregon Country, it was established by Hudson's Bay Company's Dr. John McLoughlin in 1829 near the confluence of the Clackamas River with the Willamette to take advantage of the power of Willamette Falls to run a lumber mill. During the 1840s and 1850s it was the destination for those wanting to file land claims after traveling the Oregon Trail as the last stop on the trail, it was the capital of the Oregon Territory from its establishment in 1848 until 1851, rivaled Portland for early supremacy in the area.
In 1846, the city's newspaper, the Oregon Spectator, was the first American newspaper to be published west of the Rocky Mountains. Oregon City College was defunct by the 1870s. Oregon City was the site of the Beaver Coins Mint, producing the short-lived independent Oregon Territory currency in 1849; the center of the city retains part of its historic character through the preservation of houses and other buildings from the era of the city's founding. The town became the see city of the first Roman Catholic archdiocese in the western United States, when the diocese of Oregon City, established in 1846, was raised to metropolitan rank, with Archbishop François Norbert Blanchet as its ordinary, its territory included all of the western United States. The population in the area of Oregon City declined due to the California Gold Rush; the population of nearby Portland grew, the headquarters of the archdiocese was moved there in 1926. In 1928 the name Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon replaced the former name.
No longer a residential bishopric, Oregon City is now a titular. Oregon City has several neighborhoods represented by official neighborhood associations: The Park Place neighborhood is in the northeastern corner of the city, located on a bluff overlooking Abernethy Green; the neighborhood includes a housing project, as well as numerous rural properties. Park Place an independent community includes unincorporated areas outside the city limits. First called Clackamas Paper Mill, the community was named Park Place for a park in a nearby oak grove. Park Place was platted in 1889, a post office was established the following year. For a while the name was changed to "Parkplace." The Two Rivers neighborhood is the commercial lowest-elevation area of town including downtown Oregon City, the End of the Oregon Trail Visitor's Center at Abernethy Green, Clackamette Park. It borders the Clackamas and Willamette rivers to the north and west and Park Place to the east and McLoughlin to the south. I-205 runs through the north part of the neighborhood.
The McLoughlin neighborhood is bordered by Washington Street and Singer Hill on the Northwest, a bluff overlooking Abernethy Creek on the northeast and east, Division Street on the south. It includes extends to the west to border the Canemah district; the John McLoughlin House and the upper entrance to the Municipal Elevator are located in this neighborhood. The Barclay Hills neighborhood lies between Rivercrest Neighborhood on the west, the city limits on the east, the McLoughlin Neighborhood on the north, Warner-Milne Road on the south; this neighborhood is bisected by Molalla Avenue, the former route of Oregon Route 213 before it was moved to the Oregon City Bypass to the east. The Canemah neighborhood lies along Oregon Route 99E, is a narrow strip of land sandwiched between the Willamette River and a bluff. Canemah was once an independent city before being annexed into Oregon City. Canemah was the portage site around Willamette Falls for many years, it was named after an Indian chief. The Rivercrest neighborhood includes Rivercrest Park, the residential communities overlooking the Willamette River to the west.
The South End neighborhood lies to the southwest of Rivercrest Neighborhood. It centers around the intersection of South End and Warner-Parrot roads, was the location of Oregon City's drive-in movie theater; the Hazel Grove/Westling Farm neighborhood lies in the southwestern corner of the city, lying between the bluffs over the Willamette River and the unincorporated areas to the south. The Tower Vista neighborhood lies southeast of South End, east of Hazel Grove/Whistling Farm, it is bordered on southeast by Leland Road. The Hillendale neighborhood lies south of Warner-Milne Road, east of Leland Road, north of Clairmont Way and Beavercreek Road, west of OR 213 and the city limits; the former site of City Hall is located here. The Gaffney Lane neighborhood, centered around the elementary school of the same name, lies south of Hillendale, west of OR 213, north/east of the city limits; the Caufield neighborhood contains those parts of the city located south of Park Place, east of OR 213. Clackamas Community College is located here.
The town is divided into lower areas. The lower area is on a bench next to the Willamette River; the upper area is atop a bluff composed of Canemah basalt, which flowed about 2.5 million years ago from a vent 7.5 miles to the southeast in the Boring Lava Field. For many years, Indian trails connected the two levels, but stairs were built in the 19th cent
Great Basin
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Oregon and Utah, portions of California and Wyoming, it is noted for both its arid climate and the basin and range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than 100 miles away at the summit of Mount Whitney. The region spans several physiographic divisions, biomes and deserts; the term "Great Basin" is applied to hydrographic, floristic, physiographic and ethnographic geographic areas. The name was coined by John C. Fremont, based on information gleaned from Joseph R. Walker as well as his own travels, recognized the hydrographic nature of the landform as "having no connection to the ocean"; the hydrographic definition is the most used, is the only one with a definitive border. The other definitions yield not only different geographical boundaries of "Great Basin" regions, but regional borders that vary from source to source.
The Great Basin Desert is defined by plant and animal communities, according to the National Park Service, its boundaries approximate the hydrographic Great Basin, but exclude the southern "panhandle". The Great Basin Floristic Province was defined by botanist Armen Takhtajan to extend well beyond the boundaries of the hydrographically defined Great Basin: it includes the Snake River Plain, the Colorado Plateau, the Uinta Basin, parts of Arizona north of the Mogollon Rim; the Great Basin physiographic section is a geographic division of the Basin and Range Province defined by Nevin Fenneman in 1931. The United States Geological Survey adapted Fenneman's scheme in their Physiographic division of the United States; the "section" is somewhat larger than the hydrographic definition. The Great Basin Culture Area or indigenous peoples of the Great Basin is a cultural classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas and a cultural region located between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada.
The culture area covers 400,000 sq mi, or just less than twice the area of the hydrographic Great Basin. The hydrographic Great Basin is a 209,162-square-mile area. All precipitation in the region sinks underground or flows into lakes; as observed by Fremont, streams, or rivers find no outlet to either the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean. The region is bounded by the Wasatch Mountains to the east, the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges to the west, the Snake River Basin to the north; the south rim is less distinct. The Great Basin includes most of Nevada, half of Utah, substantial portions of Oregon and California and small areas of Idaho and Mexico; the term "Great Basin" is misleading. The Great Salt Lake, Pyramid Lake, the Humboldt Sink are a few of the "drains" in the Great Basin; the Salton Sink is another closed basin within the Great Basin. The Great Basin Divide separates the Great Basin from the watersheds draining to the Pacific Ocean; the southernmost portion of the Great Basin is the watershed area of the Laguna Salada.
The Great Basin's longest and largest river is the Bear River of 350 mi, the largest single watershed is the Humboldt River drainage of 17,000 sq mi. Most Great Basin precipitation is snow, the precipitation that neither evaporates nor is extracted for human use will sink into groundwater aquifers, while evaporation of collected water occurs from geographic sinks. Lake Tahoe, North America's largest alpine lake, is part of the Great Basin's central Lahontan subregion; the hydrographic Great Basin contains multiple deserts and ecoregions, each with its own distinctive set of flora and fauna. The ecological boundaries and divisions in the Great Basin are unclear; the Great Basin overlaps four different deserts: portions of the hot Mojave and Colorado Deserts to the south, the cold Great Basin and Oregon High Deserts in the north. The deserts can be distinguished by their plants: the Joshua tree and creosote bush occur in the hot deserts, while the cold deserts have neither; the cold deserts are higher than the hot, have their precipitation spread throughout the year.
The climate and flora of the Great Basin is dependent on elevation: as the elevation increases, the precipitation increases and temperature decreases. Because of this, forests occur at higher elevations. Utah juniper/single-leaf pinyon and mountain mahogany form open pinyon-juniper woodland on the slopes of most ranges. Stands of limber pine and Great Basin bristlecone pine can be found in some of the higher ranges. In riparian areas with dependable water cottonwoods and quaking aspen groves exist; because the forest ecosystem is distinct from a typical desert, some authorities, such as the World Wildlife Fund, separate the mountains of the Great Basin desert into their own ecoregion: the Great Basin montane forests. Many rare and endemic species occur in this ecoregion, because the individual mountain ranges are isolated from each other. During the last ice age, the Great Basin was wetter; as it dried during the Holocene, some species retreated to the higher isolated mountains and have high genetic diversity.
Other authorities divide the Great Basin depending on their own criteria. Armen Takhtajan defined the "Great Basin floristic province"; the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency divides the Great Basin into three ecoregions according to latitude: the Northern B
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie and boreal province in western Canada, the only province without a natural border. It has an area of 651,900 square kilometres, nearly 10 percent of, fresh water, composed of rivers and the province's 100,000 lakes. Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, on the south by the U. S. states of North Dakota. As of late 2018, Saskatchewan's population was estimated at 1,165,903. Residents live in the southern prairie half of the province, while the northern boreal half is forested and sparsely populated. Of the total population half live in the province's largest city Saskatoon, or the provincial capital Regina. Other notable cities include Prince Albert, Moose Jaw, Swift Current, North Battleford and the border city Lloydminster. Saskatchewan is a landlocked province with large distances to moderating bodies of waters; as a result, its climate is continental, rendering severe winters throughout the province.
Southern areas have warm or hot summers. Midale and Yellow Grass near the U. S. border are tied for the highest recorded temperatures in Canada with 45 °C observed at both locations on July 5, 1937. In winter, temperatures below −45 °C are possible in the south during extreme cold snaps. Saskatchewan has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups, first explored by Europeans in 1690 and settled in 1774, it became a province in 1905, carved out from the vast North-West Territories, which had until included most of the Canadian Prairies. In the early 20th century the province became known as a stronghold for Canadian social democracy; the province's economy is based on agriculture and energy. Saskatchewan's current lieutenant governor is the current premier is Scott Moe. In 1992, the federal and provincial governments signed a historic land claim agreement with First Nations in Saskatchewan; the First Nations received compensation and were permitted to buy land on the open market for the bands.
Some First Nations have used their settlement to invest in urban areas, including Saskatoon. Its name derived from the Saskatchewan River; the river was known as kisiskāciwani-sīpiy in the Cree language. As Saskatchewan's borders follow the geographic coordinates of longitude and latitude, the province is a quadrilateral, or a shape with four sides. However, the 49th parallel boundary and the 60th northern border appear curved on globes and many maps. Additionally, the eastern boundary of the province is crooked rather than following a line of longitude, as correction lines were devised by surveyors prior to the homestead program. Saskatchewan is part of the Western Provinces and is bounded on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the north-east by Nunavut, on the east by Manitoba, on the south by the U. S. states of North Dakota. Saskatchewan has the distinction of being the only Canadian province for which no borders correspond to physical geographic features. Along with Alberta, Saskatchewan is one of only two land-locked provinces.
The overwhelming majority of Saskatchewan's population is located in the southern third of the province, south of the 53rd parallel. Saskatchewan contains two major natural regions: the Boreal Forest in the north and the Prairies in the south, they are separated by an aspen parkland transition zone near the North Saskatchewan River on the western side of the province, near to south of the Saskatchewan River on the eastern side. Northern Saskatchewan is covered by forest except for the Lake Athabasca Sand Dunes, the largest active sand dunes in the world north of 58°, adjacent to the southern shore of Lake Athabasca. Southern Saskatchewan contains another area with sand dunes known as the "Great Sand Hills" covering over 300 square kilometres; the Cypress Hills, located in the southwestern corner of Saskatchewan and Killdeer Badlands, are areas of the province that were unglaciated during the last glaciation period, the Wisconsin glaciation. The province's highest point, at 1,392 metres, is located in the Cypress Hills less than 2 km from the provincial boundary with Alberta.
The lowest point is the shore of Lake Athabasca, at 213 metres. The province has 14 major drainage basins made up of various rivers and watersheds draining into the Arctic Ocean, Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Saskatchewan receives more hours of sunshine than any other Canadian province; the province lies far from any significant body of water. This fact, combined with its northerly latitude, gives it a warm summer, corresponding to its humid continental climate in the central and most of the eastern parts of the province, as well as the Cypress Hills. Drought can affect agricultural areas during no precipitation at all; the northern parts of Saskatchewan – from about La Ronge northward – have a subarctic climate with a shorter summer season. Summers can get hot, sometimes above 38 °C during the day, with humidity decreasing from northeast to southwest. Warm southern winds blow from the plains and intermontane regions of
Quebec
Quebec is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is bordered to the west by the province of Ontario and the bodies of water James Bay and Hudson Bay. S. states of Maine, New Hampshire and New York. It shares maritime borders with Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia. Quebec is Canada's largest province by its second-largest administrative division, it is and politically considered to be part of Central Canada. Quebec is the second-most populous province of Canada, after Ontario, it is the only one to have a predominantly French-speaking population, with French as the sole provincial official language. Most inhabitants live in urban areas near the Saint Lawrence River between Montreal and Quebec City, the capital. Half of Quebec residents live in the Greater Montreal Area, including the Island of Montreal. English-speaking communities and English-language institutions are concentrated in the west of the island of Montreal but are significantly present in the Outaouais, Eastern Townships, Gaspé regions.
The Nord-du-Québec region, occupying the northern half of the province, is sparsely populated and inhabited by Aboriginal peoples. The climate around the major cities is four-seasons continental with cold and snowy winters combined with warm to hot humid summers, but farther north long winter seasons dominate and as a result the northern areas of the province are marked by tundra conditions. In central Quebec, at comparatively southerly latitudes, winters are severe in inland areas. Quebec independence debates have played a large role in the politics of the province. Parti Québécois governments held referendums on sovereignty in 1980 and 1995. Although neither passed, the 1995 referendum saw the highest voter turnout in Quebec history, at over 93%, only failed by less than 1%. In 2006, the House of Commons of Canada passed a symbolic motion recognizing the "Québécois as a nation within a united Canada". While the province's substantial natural resources have long been the mainstay of its economy, sectors of the knowledge economy such as aerospace and communication technologies and the pharmaceutical industry play leading roles.
These many industries have all contributed to helping Quebec become an economically influential province within Canada, second only to Ontario in economic output. The name "Québec", which comes from the Algonquin word kébec meaning "where the river narrows" referred to the area around Quebec City where the Saint Lawrence River narrows to a cliff-lined gap. Early variations in the spelling of the name included Kébec. French explorer Samuel de Champlain chose the name Québec in 1608 for the colonial outpost he would use as the administrative seat for the French colony of New France; the province is sometimes referred to as "La belle province". The Province of Quebec was founded in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 after the Treaty of Paris formally transferred the French colony of Canada to Britain after the Seven Years' War; the proclamation restricted the province to an area along the banks of the Saint Lawrence River. The Quebec Act of 1774 expanded the territory of the province to include the Great Lakes and the Ohio River Valley and south of Rupert's Land, more or less restoring the borders existing under French rule before the Conquest of 1760.
The Treaty of Paris ceded territories south of the Great Lakes to the United States. After the Constitutional Act of 1791, the territory was divided between Lower Canada and Upper Canada, with each being granted an elected legislative assembly. In 1840, these become Canada East and Canada West after the British Parliament unified Upper and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada; this territory was redivided into the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario at Confederation in 1867. Each became one of the first four provinces. In 1870, Canada purchased Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company and over the next few decades the Parliament of Canada transferred to Quebec portions of this territory that would more than triple the size of the province. In 1898, the Canadian Parliament passed the first Quebec Boundary Extension Act that expanded the provincial boundaries northward to include the lands of the local aboriginal peoples; this was followed by the addition of the District of Ungava through the Quebec Boundaries Extension Act of 1912 that added the northernmost lands of the Inuit to create the modern Province of Quebec.
In 1927, the border between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador was established by the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Quebec disputes this boundary. Located in the eastern part of Canada, part of Central Canada, Quebec occupies a territory nearly three times the size of France or Texas, most of, sparsely populated, its topography is different from one region to another due to the varying composition of the ground, the climate, the proximity to water. The Saint Lawrence Lowland and the Appalachians are the two main topographic regions in southern Quebec, while the Canadian Shield occupies most of central and northern Quebec. Quebec has one of the world's largest reserves of fresh water, occupying 12% of its surface, it has 3 % of the world's renewable fresh water. Mor
Montana
Montana is a landlocked state in the Northwestern United States. Montana has several nicknames, although none are official, including "Big Sky Country" and "The Treasure State", slogans that include "Land of the Shining Mountains" and more "The Last Best Place". Montana is the 4th largest in area, the 8th least populous, the 3rd least densely populated of the 50 U. S. states. The western half of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller island ranges are found throughout the state. In all, 77 named; the eastern half of Montana is characterized by badlands. Montana is bordered by Idaho to the west, Wyoming to the south, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Saskatchewan to the north; the economy is based on agriculture, including ranching and cereal grain farming. Other significant economic resources include oil, coal, hard rock mining, lumber; the health care and government sectors are significant to the state's economy. The state's fastest-growing sector is tourism.
Nearly 13 million tourists annually visit Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park, the Beartooth Highway, Flathead Lake, Big Sky Resort, other attractions. The name Montana comes from the Spanish word Montaña, which in turn comes from the Latin word Montanea, meaning "mountain", or more broadly, "mountainous country". Montaña del Norte was the name given by early Spanish explorers to the entire mountainous region of the west; the name Montana was added to a bill by the United States House Committee on Territories, chaired at the time by Rep. James Ashley of Ohio, for the territory that would become Idaho Territory; the name was changed by Representatives Henry Wilson and Benjamin F. Harding, who complained Montana had "no meaning"; when Ashley presented a bill to establish a temporary government in 1864 for a new territory to be carved out of Idaho, he again chose Montana Territory. This time Rep. Samuel Cox of Ohio, objected to the name. Cox complained the name was a misnomer given most of the territory was not mountainous and that a Native American name would be more appropriate than a Spanish one.
Other names such as Shoshone were suggested, but it was decided the Committee on Territories could name it whatever they wanted, so the original name of Montana was adopted. Montana is one of the nine Mountain States, located in the north of the region known as the Western United States, it borders North South Dakota to the east. Wyoming is to the south, Idaho is to the west and southwest, three Canadian provinces, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, are to the north. With an area of 147,040 square miles, Montana is larger than Japan, it is the fourth largest state in the United States after Alaska and California. S. state. The state's topography is defined by the Continental Divide, which splits much of the state into distinct eastern and western regions. Most of Montana's 100 or more named mountain ranges are in the state's western half, most of, geologically and geographically part of the Northern Rocky Mountains; the Absaroka and Beartooth ranges in the state's south-central part are technically part of the Central Rocky Mountains.
The Rocky Mountain Front is a significant feature in the state's north-central portion, isolated island ranges that interrupt the prairie landscape common in the central and eastern parts of the state. About 60 percent of the state is part of the northern Great Plains; the Bitterroot Mountains—one of the longest continuous ranges in the Rocky Mountain chain from Alaska to Mexico—along with smaller ranges, including the Coeur d'Alene Mountains and the Cabinet Mountains, divide the state from Idaho. The southern third of the Bitterroot range blends into the Continental Divide. Other major mountain ranges west of the Divide include the Cabinet Mountains, the Anaconda Range, the Missions, the Garnet Range, Sapphire Mountains, Flint Creek Range; the Divide's northern section, where the mountains give way to prairie, is part of the Rocky Mountain Front. The front is most pronounced in the Lewis Range, located in Glacier National Park. Due to the configuration of mountain ranges in Glacier National Park, the Northern Divide crosses this region and turns east in Montana at Triple Divide Peak.
It causes the Waterton River and Saint Mary rivers to flow north into Alberta, Canada. There they join the Saskatchewan River, which empties into Hudson Bay. East of the divide, several parallel ranges cover the state's southern part, including the Gravelly Range, the Madison Range, Gallatin Range, Absaroka Mountains and the Beartooth Mountains; the Beartooth Plateau is the largest continuous land mass over 10,000 feet high in the continental United States. It contains Granite Peak, 12,799 feet high. North of these ranges are the Big Belt Mountains, Bridger Mountains, Tobacco Roots, several island ranges, including the Crazy Mountains and Little Belt Mountains. Between many mountain ranges are rich river valleys; the Big Hole Valley, Bitterroot Valley, Gallatin Valley, Flathead Valley, Paradise Valley have extensive agricultural resources and multiple opportunities for tourism and recreation. East and north of this transition zone are the expansive and sparsely populated Northern Plains, with tableland prairies, smaller island mountain ranges, badlands.
The isolated island ranges east of the Divide include the Bear Paw Mountains, Bull Mountains, Castle Mountains, Crazy Mountains, Highwood Mountains, Judi
