Ontario

I

Introduction

Ontario, southernmost province of Canada. Ontario is the second largest of Canada’s ten provinces in area and the largest in terms of population. Commonly called the Heartland Province, Ontario is the center of Canada’s industry, population, and agriculture. Its farmers and producers have access to excellent transportation facilities, especially the St. Lawrence Seaway, which connects Lake Superior in the west to the Atlantic Ocean and is a vital trade link. Toronto, on Lake Ontario, is the province’s capital and Canada’s most populous city. The city of Ottawa, the capital of Canada, is also situated in Ontario.

Modern Ontario has its roots in the British colony of Upper Canada, which was created from the British province of Québec by the Constitutional Act of 1791. The area was named Upper Canada because its boundaries lay along the upper reaches of the Ottawa River; the name Lower Canada was given to the part of the British province of Québec that until being conquered by the British in 1763 had been the heart of New France, the French colony in North America. Upper Canada and Lower Canada were joined from 1841 to 1867 into a single administrative unit within the British Empire called the United Province of Canada. Upper Canada became known as Canada West, and Lower Canada became known as Canada East. In 1867, under the name Ontario, the territory became one of the founding provinces of the Dominion of Canada. Ontario’s name is derived from the language of one of the indigenous groups who first inhabited the region. It is frequently thought to come from the Iroquoian word for “handsome lake,” although it is more likely from the Huron for “large lake.”

II

Physical Geography

Ontario makes up a little more than 10 percent of Canada’s total area. It is bordered by the province of Québec in the east and the province of Manitoba in the west. Its southern boundary is formed by the St. Lawrence River, four of the five Great Lakes—Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Superior—and the state of Minnesota in the United States. To the north it borders on Hudson and James bays, which link to both the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. The province comprises 1,076,395 sq km (415,598 sq mi), of which 158,654 sq km (61,257 sq mi) are inland water. From its easternmost point at the border with Québec to its westernmost point at the border with Manitoba, Ontario stretches 1,628 km (1,012 mi). The distance between its southernmost point, Pelee Island in Lake Erie, and its northernmost, at Hudson Bay, is 1,685 km (1,047 mi).

A

Natural Regions

The Ontario landmass traces its origins to the last ice age, which ended some 10,000 years ago. The province’s topography is mainly a result of the effects of glacial action. When the glaciers retreated at the end of the ice age, they carved out valleys that became lakes, and left soil deposits that became hills and ridges. Ontario can be divided into three major natural regions: the Canadian Shield (also known as the Laurentian Plateau), which cuts a wide swath across the center of the province; the Hudson Bay Lowlands to the north; and the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands, which form the southernmost region.

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The Canadian Shield is part of a huge area of water, forest, and Precambrian igneous rock—mostly granite—that occupies 50 percent of Canada’s total land area. It stretches in a great crescent from the Labrador coast, through Québec and Ontario, into the Prairie provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, and then northwards to the Arctic Ocean. An extension of the shield called the Frontenac Axis penetrates the lowlands of southern Ontario to the St. Lawrence River, where it forms the rocky Thousand Islands.

The Canadian Shield makes up approximately half the land area of Ontario. Its poor soils and rough terrain have discouraged farming and extensive settlement, although several areas of clay deposits—the beds of ancient glacial lakes—are suitable for raising crops and for grazing. The region is a rich mineral storehouse and produces, among other metals, much of Canada’s copper, lead, nickel, zinc, and uranium. The Canadian Shield’s forests yield a variety of trees, particularly those used for making pulp and paper. In addition, the region’s lakes, rivers, and wooded hills attract vacationers year-round. Ontario’s highest point is in the Canadian Shield near Lake Timiskaming: Ishpatina Ridge (693 m/2,274 ft).

The Hudson Bay Lowlands in the north sit atop sedimentary rocks, mainly limestone, and dip gently northward from the Canadian Shield toward the shore of Hudson Bay. The lowlands are flat, poorly drained, and characterized by areas of swampy bogs called muskeg. In the far north of the region is a small belt of permafrost, land that is continually frozen. The rocks of the Hudson Bay Lowlands are the remains of the great beds that once covered the Canadian Shield. The beds of the lowlands remained because they were less subject to erosion than those at higher elevations. Sizeable areas of trees, commonly black spruce and larch (also called tamarack), give way to isolated stands and then stunted growths further northwards.

The third physical region of Ontario is the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands, home to most of the province’s population, agriculture, and industry. Sedimentary deposits underlie the soils of this region. The Frontenac Axis divides the region into two parts: the St. Lawrence Lowlands, which are located southeast of the city of Ottawa, and the Great Lakes Lowlands, which lie to the west. Scientists believe that a considerable area in the lower Ottawa Valley, on the province’s eastern border, was once covered by the Champlain Sea, an arm of water reaching in from the Atlantic Ocean. Clay beds of marine origin were deposited in this region. Also, sand plains formed as deltas where the Ottawa River entered the Champlain Sea. These regions are now agricultural areas.

The most notable topographical feature of the Great Lakes Lowlands is the Niagara Escarpment, a high ridge of limestone cliffs that runs about 400 km (250 mi), north from Niagara Falls through the Bruce Peninsula to the Manitoulin Islands in Lake Huron. Niagara Falls and the gorge below it are the result of the Niagara River, which empties from Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, cutting slowly through the ridge. The escarpment cradles much rich fruit-growing land near the cities of St. Catherines and Niagara Falls. Otherwise the topography of the Great Lakes Lowlands is a rolling plain once thickly carpeted with forests and now given over to agricultural, domestic, and industrial use. Glacial deposits called moraines occur in several belts that run roughly parallel to Lakes Huron and Ontario. Along the shorelines of these lakes are clay lands and beach deposits formed when even larger glacial lakes existed. The rich soils and fundamentally level lands, coupled with easy access from water routes, attracted early agricultural settlement in the area. The region now contains many of Ontario’s largest cities, including the capital, Toronto.

B

Rivers and Lakes

Approximately 6 percent of Ontario’s area is inland water. There are at least 250,000 lakes within the province’s borders, most of them located within the Canadian Shield and many of them inaccessible except by air. The Great Lakes, which straddle Ontario’s border with the United States, are the province’s largest bodies of water, and they link it with interior parts of North America. The St. Lawrence Seaway connects these lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, providing Ontario with a navigable outlet to the sea. The large lakes of Nipigon, Nipissing, Simcoe, and Lac Seul are entirely within Ontario’s borders. Other substantial bodies of water are shared with neighboring provinces and states. Ontario shares Lake of the Woods, in the southwestern corner of the province, with Manitoba and Minnesota; Lake Saint Clair with Michigan near Detroit; and the broad Ottawa River, which forms about half of Ontario’s border, with the neighboring province of Québec.

Rivers and, in some cases, canals connect these lakes. Many rivers are broken by rapids and waterfalls due to Ontario’s rocky landscape; in accessible areas, these streams are often tapped for hydroelectric power. However, many of the larger rivers are navigable, and together with the Great Lakes they provided the routes that governed Ontario’s initial settlement and development. The province’s most important river is the St. Lawrence. Its route was much improved and enlarged by dredging and canal building in the mid-20th century. This enabled large ocean-going vessels to reach Great Lake ports (see St. Lawrence Seaway). The Ottawa River was an important early route to the interior for fur traders and timber merchants. The Niagara River, because of its falls, is a great center of hydroelectric power as well as an international tourist attraction. Additional important power plants are also found on the Rainy River in western Ontario and the Moose and Abitibi river system of the northeast. Water from streams and wells is also used for irrigation purposes in the drier southwestern portion of the province.

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