Canada's Wilderness Lands Author:Donald J. Crump (Editor) Open the pages of this book and images of Canada's wild beauty spill forth: The sun sets on a golden lake, the moonglow bathes a haunting volcanic landscape. Falling snow dusks the shaggy coats fo musk-oxen, and colorful puffins flock together in an island rookery. Totem poles whisper of the past on a fog-shrouded isle, and hardy wild flower... more »s blossom on the northern tundra.
To produce this volume, five teams of writers and photographers fanned out across Canada's immense wilderness. From Atlantic Canada, a team brings back vivid impressions of Newfoundland and the Maritime Provinces. A bobcat wanders by their camp, and fat gray seals frolic in the water around their boat. Periwinkles lick algae off tide-pool rocks, and a moose crashes through the woods.
On the enormous Canadian Shield, formed of the ancient bedrock of the continent, caribou herds follow the same migration routes used for centuries, and polar bears den near the shore of huge Hudson Bay. Inuit -- "the People"- -- still hunt and trap in this vast region, and wolves leave imprints in the sand, silent reminders of their presence.
From the high Arctic come reports ofhowling winds and of glaciers that slide and grumble across a frozen wasteland. Only 7% of this region can support animal life, and arctic hares seem surprised to see humans. But during summer, actic poppies sway in the breeze, and migratory birds by the thousands come here to nest.
Grasslands, forests, and marshes stretch to distrant horizons in the interior planes, and bison roam a park created especially for them. Peregrine falcons dive from cliff-top aeries, and fossil beds yeild thousands of dinosaur bones. Northern Indians have no word for wilderness, for they know of nothing else.
Finally, a team visits western Canada, with its mountains, tundra, and twisting coats. There the writer and photographer spy mountain goats and bighorn sheep, and raft a river in the Yukon. Coyotes yap in the night in British Columbi, and whistling swans soar overhead near the Arctic Ocean.
In 200 pages of magnificent color photographs and evocative text, Canada's Wilderness Lands captures the beauty of one of the world's most spectacular realms, a place where peace and solitude can yet be found.« less