Saturday 16 April 2022

Books ~ "Canada - From the Great Lakes to the Arctic Circle" (2022) Norah Myers

From Goodreads ~ When you think of Canada, do you picture the awe-inspiring natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains, the sprawling metropolis of Toronto, or its many national parks? Perhaps moose, maple syrup or the vast expanse of the northern territories spring to mind. 

Canada is blessed with rugged mountains, ancient forests and large cosmopolitan cities; it stretches west from the Atlantic to the Pacific and north to the Arctic Ocean. There is much to discover in this breathtakingly beautiful and vast country. Canada is a fascinating exploration of the second largest country in the world. From Churchill ‘Polar bear capital of the world’ in northern Manitoba to the sleek streets of Toronto – the most populous city in Canada, from the excitement of dog-sledding in Montreal to relaxing on a beach in Vancouver, this book is packed with more than 200 spectacular photographs. 

As a Canadian, born in Nova Scotia, living in Toronto for more than 30 years and I've seen a fair bit of Canada, I thought it would be fun to see some pictures of Canada.

This book is a collection of full-colour pictures but also short facts to go along with the pictures.

The book is split into five sections:
  1. The Atlantic Region - New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland
  2. Central Canada - Ontario and Quebec
  3. The Prairie Provinces - Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba
  4. British Columbia
  5. The North - Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon.

Some of the pictures were really nice ... but others seemed amateurish and had no point and better ones could have taken their place.

While the author states that Ontario and Quebec are Canada's two largest and most populated provinces, she lumps them together into one section.  Being the largest provinces, I would have thought that they would have warranted their own sections, especially given how different Quebec is in many respects from the rest of Canada.  Yet, British Columbia got its own section?!

The pictures in the sections seemed randomly placed.  In the Atlantic Region, for example, rather than starting at Newfoundland and making her way westward, the author bounces back and forth around the provinces which I found distracting.  There are a lot of pictures of Newfoundland ... there's nothing wrong with Newfoundland but it seemed to have been her focus in that section.  And where were the pictures of Peggy's Cove or the Cabot Trail?

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