1.
Canada
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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
2.
Provinces and territories of Canada
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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
3.
Ontario
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Ontario, one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada, is located in east-central Canada. It is Canadas most populous province by a margin, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all Canadians. Ontario is fourth-largest in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and it is home to the nations capital city, Ottawa, and the nations most populous city, Toronto. There is only about 1 km of land made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border. Ontario is sometimes divided into two regions, Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario. The great majority of Ontarios population and arable land is located in the south, in contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and is heavily forested. The province is named after Lake Ontario, a thought to be derived from Ontarí, io, a Huron word meaning great lake, or possibly skanadario. Ontario has about 250,000 freshwater lakes, the province consists of three main geographical regions, The thinly populated Canadian Shield in the northwestern and central portions, which comprises over half the land area of Ontario. Although this area mostly does not support agriculture, it is rich in minerals and in part covered by the Central and Midwestern Canadian Shield forests, studded with lakes, Northern Ontario is subdivided into two sub-regions, Northwestern Ontario and Northeastern Ontario. The virtually unpopulated Hudson Bay Lowlands in the north and northeast, mainly swampy. Southern Ontario which is further sub-divided into four regions, Central Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Golden Horseshoe, the highest point is Ishpatina Ridge at 693 metres above sea level located in Temagami, Northeastern Ontario. In the south, elevations of over 500 m are surpassed near Collingwood, above the Blue Mountains in the Dundalk Highlands, the Carolinian forest zone covers most of the southwestern region of the province. A well-known geographic feature is Niagara Falls, part of the Niagara Escarpment, the Saint Lawrence Seaway allows navigation to and from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Thunder Bay in Northwestern Ontario. Northern Ontario occupies roughly 87 percent of the area of the province. Point Pelee is a peninsula of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario that is the southernmost extent of Canadas mainland, Pelee Island and Middle Island in Lake Erie extend slightly farther. All are south of 42°N – slightly farther south than the border of California. The climate of Ontario varies by season and location, the effects of these major air masses on temperature and precipitation depend mainly on latitude, proximity to major bodies of water and to a small extent, terrain relief. In general, most of Ontarios climate is classified as humid continental, Ontario has three main climatic regions
4.
Algonquin Provincial Park
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Algonquin Provincial Park is a provincial park located between Georgian Bay and the Ottawa River in Southern Ontario, Canada, mostly within the Unorganized South Part of Nipissing District. Established in 1893, it is the oldest provincial park in Canada, additions since its creation have increased the park to its current size of about 7,653 square kilometres. For comparison purposes, this is one and a half times the size of Prince Edward Island or about a quarter of the size of Belgium. The park is contiguous with several smaller, administratively separate provincial parks that protect important rivers in the area, resulting in a larger total protected area. Its size, combined with its proximity to the urban centres of Toronto and Ottawa, makes Algonquin one of the most popular provincial parks in the province. Highway 60 runs through the south of the park, while the Trans-Canada Highway bypasses it to the north, over 2,400 lakes and 1,200 kilometres of streams and rivers are located within the park. Some notable examples include Canoe Lake and the Petawawa, Nipissing, Amable du Fond, Madawaska and these were formed by the retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age. The park is considered part of the border between Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario, the park is in an area of transition between northern coniferous forest and southern deciduous forest. This unique mixture of forest types, and the variety of environments in the park, allows the park to support an uncommon diversity of plant. It is also an important site for wildlife research, Algonquin Park is the only designated park within the province of Ontario to allow industrial logging to take place within its borders. In the 19th century, the industry harvested the large white pine and red pine trees to produce lumber for domestic and American markets. The loggers were followed by numbers of homesteaders and farmers. Even at that time, however, the beauty was recognized by nature preservationists. To manage these conflicting interests, the Ontario Government appointed a commission to inquire into and report on the matter. The act to establish Algonquin Park was drawn up in 1892 by this five member Royal Commission, made up of Alexander Kirkwood, James Dickson, Archibald Blue, Robert Phipps, and Aubrey White. The commissioners remarked in their report, the experience of older countries had shown that the wholesale. Only licenses to cut pine would be issued, the commissioners had recommended that when the hardwood was mature, it too should be cut. Researchers believe that smoke from a forest fire in Algonquin Park was responsible for New Englands Dark Day of May 19,1780 and this is based on investigations into scar marks which are left in the growth rings of trees that survive forest fires
5.
Northern Ontario
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Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and administrative region of the Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of Northern Ontario is situated on the Canadian Shield, a vast rocky plateau, the climate is characterized by extremes of temperature, extremely cold in winter and hot in summer. The principal industries are mining, forestry, and hydroelectricity, for some purposes, Northern Ontario is further subdivided into Northeastern and Northwestern Ontario. When the region is divided in this way, the three westernmost districts constitute Northwestern Ontario and the other districts constitute Northeastern Ontario, Northeastern Ontario contains two thirds of Northern Ontarios population. In the early 20th century, Northern Ontario was often called New Ontario, the provinces boundaries were provisionally expanded northward and westward in 1874, while the Lake of the Woods region remained subject to a boundary dispute between Ontario and Manitoba. This region was established as the District of Patricia, but was merged into the Kenora District in 1927. The Province of Canada began creating districts in sparsely populated Northern Ontario with the establishment of Algoma District. These districts had no function, they were created for the provision of judicial. Nipissing had no seat until 1895. Up until that date, registry office and higher court services were available at Pembroke in Renfrew County, Nipissing Stipendiary Magistrate and land registrar William Doran established his residence at North Bay in 1885. Following the hotly contested district town election in 1895, North Bay earned the right to become the seat in the new Provisional District of Nipissing. After the creation of the province of Ontario in 1867, the first district to be established was Thunder Bay in 1871 which until then had formed part of Algoma District. The Ontario government was reluctant to establish new districts in the north, Ontarios right to Northwestern Ontario was determined by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1884 and confirmed by the Canada Act,1889 of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. By 1899 there were seven districts, Algoma, Manitoulin, Muskoka, Nipissing, Parry Sound, Rainy River. Five more northern districts were created between 1907 and 1922, Cochrane, Kenora, Sudbury, Temiskaming and Patricia, the Patricia District was then merged into the Kenora District in 1927. Districts are too sparsely populated to maintain a county government system, for example, districts have provincially maintained secondary highways instead of county roads. Geographically, the districts in Northern Ontario are Rainy River, Kenora, Thunder Bay, Cochrane, Timiskaming, Algoma, Sudbury, Nipissing andManitoulin. As well, for administrative purposes, the districts of Muskoka, the federal government continues to retain both more southerly districts in the service area of FedNor
6.
Southern Ontario
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Southern Ontario is a primary region of the province of Ontario, Canada, the other primary region being Northern Ontario. It is the most densely populated and southernmost region in Canada, situated south of Algonquin Park, it covers between 14 and 15% of the province, depending on the inclusion of the Parry Sound and Muskoka districts. The region is home to one-third of Canadas population, Southern Ontario differs greatly from Northern Ontario, in that it has a larger population, different climate, and different culture than its northern counterpart. It is broken into smaller subregions, including Central Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Southwestern Ontario, Southern Ontario is part of the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor, which extends northeast into Quebec. Southern Ontario can be distinguished from Northern Ontario because it is far more densely populated and contains the majority of the cities, major roads. Northern Ontario, in contrast, contains natural resources and remote wilderness. Although it has no coastline, the region has an abundance of freshwater coastlines on three Great Lakes, as well as smaller lakes such as Lake Simcoe and Lake St. Clair. It is a vineyard region and producer of Canadian wines. Territorial Southern Ontario was explored and colonized by the French in the 17th century, Southern Ontario was where a large portion of the battles took place during the War of 1812, and was a major destination for escaping slaves using the underground railroad. Following the enactment of Prohibition in the United States in 1919, Southern Ontario is home to over 94%, or 12.1 million, of Ontarios total population of 12.9 million people, compared to approximately 750,000 in Northern Ontario. For thousands of years, Ontario has been home to aboriginal communities. Over 200,000 aboriginal Canadians live in Southern Ontario today, Southern Ontario was colonized by the French and the British. Since the late 20th century, many immigrants have come from Asia, the region is one of the top destinations for immigrants worldwide, particularly the Greater Toronto Area. The area has a manufacturing sector. Since the mid-2000s, Ontario has produced more vehicles per year than the state of Michigan, in a cross-border definition, a swath of Southern Ontario could be considered a part of the Rust Belt. Factory closings because of restructuring, globalization have for the past few decades taken their toll. This is most evident in the southern tier cities which have large automobile or associated industrial bases, such as Windsor, London, St. Thomas. Still affected by these factors but to an extent is Hamilton, the centre of steel production, and Sarnia
7.
Sawmill
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A sawmill or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Prior to the invention of the sawmill, boards were rived and planed, the earliest known mechanical mill is the Hierapolis sawmill, a Roman water-powered stone mill at Hierapolis, Asia Minor dating back to the 3rd century AD. Other water-powered mills followed and by the 11th century they were widespread in Spain and North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, the circular motion of the wheel was converted to a reciprocating motion at the saw blade. Generally, only the saw was powered, and the logs had to be loaded and moved by hand, an early improvement was the development of a movable carriage, also water powered, to move the log steadily through the saw blade. Scrap lumber from the mill provided a source of fuel for firing the boiler, the arrival of railroads meant that logs could be transported to mills rather than mills being built besides navigable waterways. Besides the sawn timber, use is made of all the by-products including sawdust, bark, wood chips, a sawmills basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago, a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end. After trees are selected for harvest, the step in logging is felling the trees. Branches are cut off the trunk, logs are taken by logging truck, rail or a log drive to the sawmill. Logs are scaled either on the way to the mill or upon arrival at the mill, debarking removes bark from the logs. Decking is the process for sorting the logs by species, size, a sawyer uses a head saw to break the log into cants and flitches. Trimming squares the ends at typical lumber lengths, drying removes naturally occurring moisture from the lumber. This can be done with kilns or air-dried, planing smooths the surface of the lumber leaving a uniform width and thickness. Shipping transports the lumber to market. The Hierapolis sawmill, a Roman water-powered stone saw mill at Hierapolis and it is also the earliest known machine to incorporate a crank and connecting rod mechanism. Water-powered stone sawmills working with cranks and connecting rods, but without gear train, are attested for the 6th century AD at the Eastern Roman cities Gerasa. The earliest literary reference to a working sawmill comes from a Roman poet, at one point in the poem he describes the shrieking sound of a watermill cutting marble. Marble sawmills also seem to be indicated by the Christian saint Gregory of Nyssa from Anatolia around 370/390 AD, sawmills became widespread in medieval Europe again, as one was sketched by Villard de Honnecourt in c. They are claimed to have introduced to Madeira following its discovery in c.1420
8.
Minnesota
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Minnesota is a state in the midwestern and northern regions of the United States. Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U. S. state on May 11,1858, the state has a large number of lakes, and is known by the slogan Land of 10,000 Lakes. Its official motto is LÉtoile du Nord, Minnesota is the 12th largest in area and the 21st most populous of the U. S. Minnesota is known for its progressive political orientation and its high rate of civic participation and voter turnout. Until European settlement, Minnesota was inhabited by the Dakota and Ojibwe/Anishinaabe, in recent decades, immigration from Asia, the Horn of Africa, and Latin America has broadened its historic demographic and cultural composition. Minnesotas standard of living index is among the highest in the United States, Native Americans demonstrated the name to early settlers by dropping milk into water and calling it mnisota. Many places in the state have similar names, such as Minnehaha Falls, Minneiska, Minneota, Minnetonka, Minnetrista, and Minneapolis, a combination of mni and polis, Minnesota is the second northernmost U. S. state. Its isolated Northwest Angle in Lake of the Woods county is the part of the 48 contiguous states lying north of the 49th parallel. The state is part of the U. S. region known as the Upper Midwest and it shares a Lake Superior water border with Michigan and a land and water border with Wisconsin to the east. Iowa is to the south, North Dakota and South Dakota are to the west, with 86,943 square miles, or approximately 2.25 percent of the United States, Minnesota is the 12th-largest state. Minnesota has some of the Earths oldest rocks, gneisses that are about 3.6 billion years old. About 2.7 billion years ago, basaltic lava poured out of cracks in the floor of the primordial ocean, the roots of these volcanic mountains and the action of Precambrian seas formed the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. Following a period of volcanism 1, in more recent times, massive ice sheets at least one kilometer thick ravaged the landscape of the state and sculpted its terrain. The Wisconsin glaciation left 12,000 years ago and these glaciers covered all of Minnesota except the far southeast, an area characterized by steep hills and streams that cut into the bedrock. This area is known as the Driftless Zone for its absence of glacial drift, much of the remainder of the state outside the northeast has 50 feet or more of glacial till left behind as the last glaciers retreated. Gigantic Lake Agassiz formed in the northwest 13,000 years ago and its bed created the fertile Red River valley, and its outflow, glacial River Warren, carved the valley of the Minnesota River and the Upper Mississippi downstream from Fort Snelling. Minnesota is geologically quiet today, it experiences earthquakes infrequently, the states high point is Eagle Mountain at 2,301 feet, which is only 13 miles away from the low of 601 feet at the shore of Lake Superior. Notwithstanding dramatic local differences in elevation, much of the state is a rolling peneplain. Two major drainage divides meet in Minnesotas northeast in rural Hibbing, forming a triple watershed, precipitation can follow the Mississippi River south to the Gulf of Mexico, the Saint Lawrence Seaway east to the Atlantic Ocean, or the Hudson Bay watershed to the Arctic Ocean
9.
Midwestern United States
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It was officially named the North Central region by the Census Bureau until 1984. Illinois is the most populous of the states and North Dakota the least, a 2012 report from the United States Census put the population of the Midwest at 65,377,684. The Midwest is divided by the Census Bureau into two divisions, the East North Central Division includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, all of which are also part of the Great Lakes region. Major rivers in the include, from east to west, the Ohio River, the Upper Mississippi River. Chicago is the most populated city in the American Midwest and the third most populous in the entire country, other large Midwest cities include, Indianapolis, Columbus, Detroit, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Omaha, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Wichita and St. Louis. Chicago and its suburbs form the largest metropolitan area with 9.8 million people, followed by Metro Detroit. Paul, Greater St. Louis, Greater Cleveland, Greater Cincinnati, Kansas City metro area, the term Midwestern has been in use since the 1880s to refer to portions of the central United States. A variant term, Middle West, has used since the 19th century. Another term sometimes applied to the general region is the heartland. Other designations for the region have fallen out of use, such as the Northwest or Old Northwest, the Northwest Territory was one of the earliest territories of the United States, stretching northwest from the Ohio River to northern Minnesota and upper-Mississippi. The upper-Mississippi watershed including the Missouri and Illinois Rivers was the setting for the earlier French settlements of the Illinois Country, economically the region is balanced between heavy industry and agriculture, with finance and services such as medicine and education becoming increasingly important. Its central location makes it a crossroads for river boats, railroads, autos, trucks. Politically the region swings back and forth between the parties, and thus is heavily contested and often decisive in elections, after the sociological study Middletown, which was based on Muncie, Indiana, commentators used Midwestern cities as typical of the nation. The region has a higher ratio than the Northeast, the West. Traditional definitions of the Midwest include the Northwest Ordinance Old Northwest states, the states of the Old Northwest are also known as Great Lakes states and are east-north central in the United States. The Ohio River runs along the section while the Mississippi River runs north to south near the center. Many of the Louisiana Purchase states in the west-north central United States, are known as Great Plains states. The Midwest lies north of the 36°30′ parallel that the 1820 Missouri Compromise established as the line between future slave and non-slave states
10.
American Civil War
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The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
Canada
Ontario
South Algonquin
