In the Hudson Bay lowland a different glacial process has changed the land. The immense weight of a depth of 2-3 km of ice in this area near the centre of the continental ice sheets had gradually depressed the earth’s crust, and immediately after deglaciation, ocean waters covered the area still below sea level. This sea extended far beyond the present shore of Hudson Bay, over most of the lowland to approximately the boundary of the Shield. Very slowly the flexible crust rebounded after the load of ice was gone. In most of Ontario the rebound is complete, but at the Hudson Bay shore, the land is still slowly recovering at the rate of about 1 cm a year and the land area of Ontario continues to increase as Hudson Bay ever so gradually shrinks. In the huge land area south of Hudson Bay, drowned for many years by the sea after the glaciation, marine clays increased the already existing flatness of the lowland. Moreover, marine gravel strandlines, built when the shoreline stood at particularly high levels for longer periods, dam up easy drainage to Hudson Bay and increase the wetness of this area.

Now we turn more specifically to human responses to the major terrain regions produced by geological forces.

Great Lakes—St. Lawrence Lowlands

Before agricultural settlement, great stands of deciduous trees, for example oaks, maples, and elms, of which Ontarians were particularly proud, clothed the land north of Lakes Erie and Ontario, with occasional small stands of pine and cedar. Closer to the Shield a mixed forest of broadleaf and needleleaf trees took over. The soils on which these forests grew and which the forests had helped create with their organic matter were fertile. Native peoples, especially in Huronia, practised some agriculture, but when European farmers arrived in the late 18th century, they rushed rapidly over this land, pushing aside the natives, and by the 1850s had converted most of the lowlands into farmland. It was backbreaking, miserable work. Clearing the woodlands and creating farmland was the central pioneering experience in the European settling of Ontario. Not until the overwhelming forests had been cleared, an act of destruction similar in its day to the destruction of Amazonian forests today, could settlers have panoramic glimpses of the land. A telling example of how the land was obscured by the dense forests is that for some decades in the early 19th century there was confusion about whether the Niagara Escarpment actually ran from Hamilton northward to Georgian Bay as, of course, it does, or whether it curved around the west end of Lake Ontario and continued eastward as the Albion Hills and Oak Ridges moraine.

Southern Ontario has a climate favourable for agriculture: abundant precipitation, high summer temperatures and a long growing season. It has fertile and productive soils with some of the very best farmland in Canada. But there are problems. This land must be cared for.

In the early 20th century light, sandy soils were blowing away after persistent cropping, and to counter this, county forests were established in Haldimand-Norfolk, Simcoe and Northumberland counties. There were other problems. In the 1930s as a result of forest clearing and increasingly rapid water runoff, river flooding was a growing hazard. After World War II, the provincial government created Conservation authorities to establish facilities to control flooding. Dams and reservoirs were built, with the latter also made available for recreational purposes. Nature reserves were also created. Ontarians, through the conservation areas, learned more about the natural qualities of their land, a land they had previously tended to regard only as an agricultural resource.

An example of a pronounced shift in perception is the change in attitude to the Niagara Escarpment. Of course its most spectacular feature, Niagara Falls, had been visited for generations and, indeed, Ontario’s first provincial park was established there in 1885 to protect the surrounding area from the pressure of thousands of visitors each year. But until the 1970s, the remainder of the escarpment from the Niagara River to the Bruce Peninsula was not recognized as an exceptional feature worth preserving from the activities of industrialists and land developers. Public pressure is now forcing the government to protect the scarp.

Many parts of the lowland have to be protected from the push of city dwellers. The special, very limited lands of the Niagara fruit belt, one of the few places in Canada where tender fruits can be grown, are continually under threat from the urban sprawl between the Niagara River and Hamilton. And the lakes have fared no better. For many years we did little for Ontario citizens with the shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario. The general public still largely turns its back on those lakes though almost every urban centre on the lakes or the St. Lawrence River, especially Toronto, has its high-rise waterfront condominiums. Marinas with their dazzling white boats seem to expand every year. Hardly any public beaches were preserved, and the water became increasingly polluted. But there are changes. We are newly aware that stringent measures are needed to clean up the lakes. Perhaps one reason the lakes were ignored for a long time, and matters got out of hand is that the great recreational escape for Ontarians for many years has been the Shield.

The Shield

For centuries the Shield has been a homeland for natives hunting, fishing, travelling by canoe and snowshoe, using the available resources with exquisite skill in a life of never-ending movement. Europeans came, adopted many native ways and techniques, but exploited both the fur resources of the region and the natives. But the most massive exploitation was of the timber and minerals of the Shield. In the Shield mixed forest gives way to the boreal forest of white pine, red pine and spruce. In the 19th century Muskoka and Haliburton were logged, but those timber operations were eclipsed by a strong thrust of lumbermen northward up the Ottawa River. Later, logging was extended to all easily accessible parts of the Shield to provide logs for both pulp and paper mills and saw mills. By the 1890s the need for watershed and forest resource protection was apparent, and Algonquin Park was created to help preserve that area from over-exploitation and make it available for recreational uses.

Sustained mineral exploitation of the Shield mainly followed railway building within the region, beginning in the 1880s with the construction of the C.P.R. and the discovery of nickel and copper ores in the Sudbury basin. Airplanes in the 1900s made prospecting much easier because prospectors could be quickly flown to distant lakes and kept readily provided with supplies. Today there are precious metal and base metal mines in many parts of the Shield.

Loggers and miners pushed aggressively into the Shield and without hesitation wrought great transformations, many not for the better. Appreciation of the distinctive landscape was another matter. Most newcomers at first did not know how to cope with the scenery of this land. Strange as it may seem, to early European eyes the Shield was an ugly, terrifying, repugnant land. Wealth was to be gained from exploiting timber, but that did not mean one appreciated the wild landscape. True, there were a few attractive areas such as the scenic fairy-land of the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River, where an arm of the Shield crosses the great river, and the Thirty Thousand Islands on Georgian Bay. Then, suddenly, in the 1850s the tables turned, and there was an astonishing change in the perception of the Shield. The wonderful recreational qualities of the lakes, rivers and forests in the rugged terrain of the Shield were discovered by canoeists and campers from southern Ontario. At first the wealthy of southern Ontario and the northern United States came to Muskoka and Haliburton, but in this century more and more parks used by all sectors of the general public have been established in addition to Algonquin Park. Today recreation in the Shield is important right from the Ottawa River to Lake of the Woods.

A few farmers did move into the Shield. But this was no southern Ontario. Pockets of clay amid rock knobs supported farms for some decades in the area from Georgian Bay to the Ottawa River, but there was a gradual withdrawal by many settlers from the land as expectations could not be met. Farther north farming continues with greater success in the more extensive Little and Great Clay Belts, and in patches of better land in the Thunder Bay and Rainy River areas. But farming is restricted in most of the Shield because of lack of soil and the short growing seasons.

Fervent cries are heard for conservation and wilderness preservation in the Shield. Natives insist that humans should live in harmony with nature. In the 1930s Grey Owl argued for conservation of forests and wildlife and beginning in the 1960s there has been growing emphasis on the vital need for preserving the wilderness and wilderness values. Bitter conflicts rage between advocates for resource development and those for wilderness preservation. Governments must have the willpower to devise and implement policies which ensure the survival of the wilderness and foster environmental stewardship, provide a satisfactory homeland for native peoples, and a secure means of livelihood for those who live in the Shield and exploit its forest and mineral resources.

Hudson Bay Lowland

In the Hudson Bay lowland, spruce trees form narrow corridors on constructed, well-drained sites along the main rivers and elsewhere are interspersed with bog. Close to the Hudson Bay shore the cold waters of the bay hold critical temperatures down during the growing season, and trees abruptly give way to tundra vegetation. Extending back approximately 70 km from the bay, the subsurface remains permanently frozen, and there are pockets of permafrost for another 400 km. In these places only the surface layer thaws in summer. In that season this is a very difficult land to traverse except along the rivers. Virtually the only settlements are the native communities at the mouths of major rivers except for the town of Moosonee at the James Bay terminus of the Ontario Northland Railway. It is no wonder that the lowland used to be perceived as a dismal water desert. Only recently have wetlands such as the Hudson Bay lowland entered our consciousness in a positive way. We have come to appreciate their vital role as a habitat in the yearly cycle of wildlife and have realized with some dismay to what extent wetlands and such habitats have been destroyed in southern Ontario in the process of creating farmland. This is another part of our increasing environmental awareness. Who knows how valuable the wet Hudson Bay lowland may be for humans in the long run? Fortunately there is no reason to tamper with it, for instance with grandiose power developments.

Conclusion

Ontario is blessed with a varied and interesting terrain including natural features of worldwide renown such as the Great Lakes, Niagara Falls and the Shield. Most Ontarians live in the south, in large cities. Fortunately with the automobile and great mobility of people, most have no difficulty in visiting the different parts of Ontario and getting to know the province’s varied landscapes at first hand, thus learning to appreciate and understand the qualities of their homeland.

The land and waters have a profound impact on people in numerous ways. They help provide for basic needs through the resources humans have exploited. On the land man has created a distinctive habitat; the landscapes of farms, towns and cities. The lands and waters are a major component of the scenery and provide recreational and holiday country as well as wilderness for rest, recuperation and contemplation of nature. We are stewards of these lands and waters. Nowadays no one debates whether there is a need for stewardship and protection. It is obvious. We have not treated the lands and waters well in our rush to exploit them. The only question is how we can take care of them most effectively for the long-term benefit not only to ourselves but also to those who will follow for generations to come.