#Canadian Shield

[kiragecko]

The Canadian Shield

Apparently, the Canadian Shield is a “geologic province”. That just means a large area with a lot of geology in common. I like it because it’s really WEIRD.

The Shield was created by glaciers sliding through. They scraped off all the topsoil and softer rock, and messed up all the watersheds. What developed in the ruins was a maze of endless rivers and lakes, large rocks covered in mosses and lichens, and trees. Lots of trees.¹

There are several things that I think are cool:

the rocks, moss, and lichen

the deranged drainage system

the endlessness

Rocks, Moss, and Lichen

Much of the Canadian Shield is covered in boreal forests (also called taiga). At least, wherever there’s enough dirt. But there is a LOT of exposed rock. And growing on those rocks are the coolest plants/animals in the world – lichens.

Lichens are a symbiosis of algae, fungi, and yeast! Some look like moss – all soft branched stalks. Some look like crunchy fungi or seaweed – growing off the rocks in weird ruffles. Others look like … paint? You know how some rocks will have coloured crusty spots that can be peeled off? Those are lichen! (Some are even powdery, but we don’t get many of those in the Shield.)

Then there’s ACTUAL moss. And moss is almost as cool as lichen! All wet and squishy and ridiculously complex if you look at it closely. Gorgeous stuff!

And finally, there’s the rocks themselves. If you live in an area with rocks, possibly you do not find them breathtaking. But I remember excitedly talking to my parents for SEVERAL MINUTES after seeing a rock in a field, because here in the prairies, you don’t see them.

And these are COOL rocks. Bedrock. Super hard igneous rock that doesn’t wear quickly. It forms cliffs and ravines, despite the fact that the area is quite flat on the macroscale. Canoeing under a cliff face that leans over you is an awe-inspiring experience. Staring down into the depths of the lake below you, seeing that it goes straight down, and then a few feet later the water is shallow. The rocks are big, and full of neat cracks, and pretty coloured, and … they’re good rocks.

Deranged Drainage System

Since the land is made of super hard rock that weathers slowly, and all the watersheds got messed up by the glaciers dumping rocks around the edges of the Shield, water struggles to form normal drainage systems. Rather than starting as small rivers and then combining  as they flow downstream, water just collects in every lowpoint. Thousands of small lakes form, connecting to each other at odd, sometimes hidden, points, with very little predictability. Rapids and waterfalls are common. Shorelines are very irregular, with all sorts of hidden coves. It becomes difficult to figure out what is an island, and what is the mainland.

Looking down from the air, the landscape seems fractal. Sitting on a rock, staring at the opposite shore, it’s obvious that this is true.

Navigating these waterchannels takes a LOT of skill. Mapping them barely helps – the maps are complex enough that it’s hard to absorb the correct information. The Nîhithaw (Cree) navigate by attaching stories to the landmarks, which makes it fun to travel with a guide.

Endlessness

The Canadian Shield is HUGE. It covers over half of Canada! The features that make it up are small, and complex. Most of it is sparsely inhabited. There are few roads; and a lot of areas, travel is either by boat or float plane.

The effect is that of an endless landscape. By plane, you can see more lakes than you can count, all difficult to identify. They stretch to the horizon in every direction.

By boat, you can see many, many interesting  and unique-seeming features. But half an hour later you’ll discover yourself in a spot that looks identical. You’re frequently slipping around blind corners and into narrow, hidden channels, which increases the sense of covering ground. But because you’re rarely going in a straight line, it’s difficult to figure out how far you’ve actually gone. It’s a maze, and it’s possible to travel it for days without seeing a single other human.

(Or you can see multiple groups of people over an hour long trip. It’s very unpredictable.)

That combination of isolation, scale, constantly changing view (that still stays the same TYPE of view), lets me truly  FEEL the vastness. Everything about me gets quiet in the Shield. I’ll suddenly find my face aching from smiling so big for so long. The world is endless and peaceful and not designed for me in the slightest.

It’s exhilarating.

-

¹ There are a few different biomes in the Shield. But the main one, and the one I’ve mostly experienced, is the boreal forest. So that’s the part I’m focusing on. Especially the landscapes of the Whiteshell and northern Saskatchewan.

[vox-anglosphere]

Early roads west were carved through a forbidding wilderness

[deanorosphoto]

Above: Beautiful symmetry or tangled mess?

In my previous post, I introduced THE MOODY BLUES OF THE SLEEPING GIANT, a new black and white photograph where I play with hues of blue and contrast. 

In today’s post I continue exploring with monochromatic interpretation of nature with:

THE FOREST.

THE FOREST is neat, laid out with beautiful symmetry. Is it a perfect balance of harmony and form? Or is it a big tangled mess of branches, twigs and foliage, scattered about by light striking from various angles as the sun begins it late afternoon descent?

Interpretation and perspective. How we VIEW THINGS one day may not be the same as the next.

I see certain beauty and symmetry. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.... as the lyrics going back to 1939-40 state. Perhaps some things don’t change with time.

Pictured is the forest of Centennial Park which is located in Thunder Bay, in Ontario’s Superior Country. Trails include the blue and red trail: a 6.5 mile (10.5 km) loop within a portion of the 147 acres of Centennial Park. The trail begins at the park’s parking lot and follows along the shores of Current River, through the park and Trowbridge Falls.

In my next post I’ll continue with my series exploring the beautiful YUKON TERRITORY. 

THE FOREST: SHOP FINE ART PRINTS.

Two versions of THE FOREST are available.

1. THE FOREST FULL FRAME

2. THE FOREST TRIFOLD

Choose traditional silver-halide, archival giclée or gallery-wrapped canvas prints. Order via my online gallery or CONTACT ME. I’ll ensure you’re ordering exactly what you want.

Thank you for visiting. 

SEE MORE DEAN OROS FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY.

Curated collections of my photographs are available to enjoy in your home, office or retail space.

Virtual Gallery: DEANOROSPHOTO.COM

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artistry + documentary



[shelandsorcery]

Four crystal islands

[davidstanleytravel]

The granite bedrock of the Canadian Shield in Sylvia Grinnell Territorial Park, Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada, was scraped clean by glaciers some 7,000 years ago.

[asymmetryestablished]

Basic question. I wanna know what’s your favorite place in the world and why.

ohhhh I’m so bad at picking favourites. simple question, complicated answer. but

there’s this geographical region called the Canadian Shield. according to britannica.com, it’s shaped like this:

and is “the largest mass of exposed Precambrian rock on the face of Earth” (source).

basically: it’s bedrock, breaching the surface of the earth like a pod of enormous whales. millennia ago, in some places at least, it used to be mountains; now, they’re worn down, most of their tops eroded away. what’s left is these massive swells of bedrock that break through the dirt, and I can’t quite explain what I love so much about it but there’s something so poetic about it. it feels old, when you stand on it, and massive. it absolutely dwarfs you.

I’m not sure I can explain it any better, so here’s a photo I took on the northern shores of Lake Superior early this fall. I love this land with all my heart.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"However, there were other equally important influences besides currents of thought that sanctioned the conservatism apparent in these laws. In the first place, the Canadian Shield imposed certain limitations upon the use to which the land might be put and, therefore, the manner in which it might be alienated. Secondly, the Shield supported an economy all its own and the strongest elements of that economy, the lumbermen, chose to protect and foster their interests by defending rather than reducing the power of the state. Finally and more tentatively, an aversion to direct taxation forced politicians to expand the authority of the state in those areas where indirect taxation in various forms might possibly produce a revenue sufficient to meet the costs of necessary services.

Precisely because the Shield laid down a definite and undeniable boundary to the limits of prime arable land, it frustrated the application in Ontario of a unitary socio-political conception of the environment similar to the agrarian homestead myth which so radically affected American resource alienation policies. Philosophers, poets and politicians, setting their republican, democratic political beliefs against a physical back drop of seemingly endless fertile land, magnified the image of the yeoman farmer to embody the political and social values of the nation. Rooted in the elemental faith that every man had a natural right to the land, that agriculture was the only true source of wealth, and that the labour spent on the land conferred the best title to it, the "agrarian myth" spawned a profusion of derivative values; the foremost being that land ownership carried status and self-respect, that the independence fostered by property afforded the basis for freedom and rational judgment, and the mystical notion that the farmer's communion with nature and the earth ensured the permanent happiness and purity of the republic. This cluster of values drawn from the pastoral poets and physiocrats seemed to be confirmed by the early interaction of men with their environment in America, with the result that the primary intent of American land policy by mid-century was the western extension of a "fee simple empire." The homestead system imposed that single conception of the environment as a Farmers' Frontier upon the public lands policy. Because the object in passing the entire public domain by 160-acre plots to professed cultivators for either cash or their labour in fee simple was the perpetuation of the Republic, all other forms of land tenure were quite naturally dismissed as alien. Thus, Senator Benton's denunciation of tenantry: "It lays the foundation for separate orders in society, annihilates the love of country, and weakens the spirit of independence." Thus also Frederick Jackson Turner's disquietude at the passing of the frontier of free land." 

- H. V. Nelles, The Politics of Development: Forests, Mines & Hydro-Electric Power in Ontario, 1849-1941. Second Edition. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005 (1974), p. 42-43

[thedailymobile]

“And Make a Northwest Passage to the Sea”

[ribzinc]

Twerp behaviour

[waywtvideos]

Killbear Park

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Facial Snow Shield

This image from 1939 shows a unique and rather unconventional attempt at headgear design: Plastic face protectors intended for use during snowstorms in Montreal, Canada.

[vox-anglosphere]

We've had a glorious fall, all things considered.. and no frost so far.

Autumn came gently to Ontario's cottage country this year.

[ames-draws]

2024-07-28

[loxare]

do i.. WANT to know about the drumlins?

YES YOU DO

Drumlins are glacial landforms, which means you find them only in places that have been glaciated. And they're very distinct when you know what you're looking for.

A hill with one steep side, one looooong sloping side, and you've (most likely) got yourself a drumlin. (Unless it's small. Drumlins are tens of meters high and hundreds of meters long, so if you've got a short one with way more elongation, you've got a drumlinoid.) They're all over Canada,the north eastern US, and northern Europe. The one pictured above is in Ireland. The ones in Canada and the US formed as the Laurentide Ice Sheet, a kilometers thick mass of glacial ice, was spreading across North America during the Last Glacial Maximum

There are lots of really cool glacial landforms (eskers and kames and lakes (Glacial Lake Agassiz my beloved) and like a dozen types of moraine), but drumlins are my favourite because they're so incredibly easy to identify, they occur in swarms, and they're kinda weird as hell

There's still some debate among geomorphologists about how, exactly, they form but I was told that the (mindbogglingly huge mass of) ice catches on a sticky uppy bit of bedrock and instead of mowing it down like a child kicking over a stack of blocks, moves around it instead. And because there's now a place behind the bedrock where there's less ice, the ice drops a whole bunch of glacial till (all the bits of sediment that did get mowed down like a child kicking over a stack of blocks) on the other side of the bedrock bit

(This is a constructional theory, where the drumlin is built up. the other main one is the erosional theory, where everything but the drumlin is eroded. There's also a theory that drumlins are deposited by subglacial meltwater, but that one is highly controversial)

"Now wait," I hear you say, "go back a bit. What the fuck was that about swarms?"

They occur in swarms.

If you've got one drumlin, good chances you've got a lot of drumlins. Which is actually amazing, because the steep side of the drumlin faces the direction of flow, which means we know exactly how the ice sheet moved. In this image, for example, the ice started at the top, near Lake Ontario, and then moved south. From looking at drumlins (and other glacial landforms, we do like to have multiple reference points), we know that the Laurentide Ice Sheet started in the Hudson Bay and crept out from there

And because they're so distinct (tear drop shaped, made of till, occur in swarms), and because drumlins can only have been made by glacial activity, we can look all over the world and find these things and know that this place was once under several thousand tonnes of ice

Not during the Last Glacial Maximum, but definitely ones before it. And I just think that's neat

[adventures-in-poor-planning]

"It's sad that I'm always too busy in the summer to go camping" - guy who literally chose to work at Busy In The Summer

[oldshowbiz]

December 10, 1991.

Norm Macdonald appeared on the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. The episode featured Barry Manilow, Mark Shields of the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour, and guest host Jay Leno.

Jay Leno: Welcome back. Well, this is very exciting. My next guest is a very funny comedian, and this is his very first appearance on the Tonight Show. He’s a regular at the Improvisation right here in Hollywood. Please welcome – Norm Macdonald!

Norm did a bit about Mr. World competing against Mr. Universe.

Norm Macdonald: I don’t know about you guys, but I’m putting my money on Mr. World on this one, y’know? I figure he’s a shoe-in with his home-planet advantage and everything.

His set was greeted with rolling laughter and boisterous applause. As the trumpets of Doc Severinsen’s orchestra blared, Norm made his way over to the panel and sat down beside the host.

Jay Leno: So what are you doing for Christmas? Any plans? Norm Macdonald: No, I’m staying at home with my weiner dog. I’m trying to buy stuff for him. You ever shop for a dog? Jay Leno: No, can’t say I have… Norm Macdonald: Ah, man, it’s hard … you don’t know what to get him. I want to get him something he wouldn’t get for himself ordinarily. I figure as long as I stay away from strewn garbage I’m all right.

As the segment ended, Leno noted Norm’s unusual cadence.

Jay Leno: You’re from where? Canada? Norm Macdonald: Canada, yeah. Jay Leno: Canada. That would explain the accent! All right, Norm Macdonald, very funny stuff, be right back after this. Macdonald moved one seat down to make room for the next guest, Mark Shields, political commentator for the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour. As soon as he sat down, Shields slapped Norm on his knee. Mark Shields: Home planet advantage! One of the great lines I’ve ever heard! Wonderful!