S.2 Geography Canadian Prairies. Caltec S.2

Page | 1 Introduction: A prairie is a French word meaning meadows or an extensive grassland. It is an extensive temperate grassland —Canadian temperate grassland . This region is located in central plains of North America between the Canadian Shield and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It covers the Southern parts of the provinces of Alb erta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba which make about a fifth of the country’s total land area. The grass land also extends to U.S.A in North Dakota, South Da kota and Montana states. The largest cities found in the Prairie Provinces are Edmonton and Calgary (Alberta), Regina (Saskatchewan) and Winnipeg (Manitoba) . The Canadian Prairies region has a triangular shape with the base at the American border as illus trated below: The Canadian prairies are characterized by plains t hat rise in a series of levels separated by hills gradually rising f rom 300metres near Winnipeg city in Manitoba in the east to 900 metres near Calgary city in Alberta in the west. The undulating plain is low in the east from the great lakes and rises in the west to foot hills of Rocky Mountains. Rivers like North and South Saskatchewan in Alberta, Assini boine; Souris and Red river from Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba and Athabasca in Alberta to Cedar Lake have Page | 2 dissected the relief with deep valley. Therefore, the relief of Canadian prairies is a series of dissected plain s (plateau) as illustrated. The area experiences an extreme type of climate or cool tempera te interior type of climate or a continental type of climate. Extrem es in climatic conditions are experienced. The climate of the prairies is characterized by the following: - The summers are Warm with temperature over 150c Several sunny days in summer or brilliant sunshine in …