Canadian Shield: The Rocks That Made Canada - Paperback

by Nick Eyles (Author), Arnold Zageris (Photographer), Tessa Macintosh (Photographer)

Being a Canadian carries with it a tangible sense of living on the edge of a vast barren interior. Only named as such in 1883, the Canadian Shield is an empty immensity of lakes, bogs, rivers, forest and protruding ribs of hard Precambrian crystalline rock that covers more than half of the total land area of Canada.

This book traces the geologic evolution of the Shield, its first tentative exploration by humans starting 11,000 years ago as the last great ice sheets withdrew, its changing economic fortunes as Europeans penetrated its remote rocky vastnesses for furs and metals, and its transformation in the twentieth century into a national icon to Canadians.

Regarded as 'barren' and of no value, much of the Shield was given away in 1670 to a single London-based fur trading company, the Hudson Bay Company, who jealously guarded its northern domain until 1867. This two hundred year long monopoly created a virtual government over a huge piece of North America. Without the HBC, much of it would have passed into American hands and there would have been no 'Canadian' Shield or country called Canada. As a nation, we are indebted to hard rock.

Author Biography

Renowned Yellowknife-based photographer, Tessa MacIntosh has depicted the heart and soul of Canada's North on assignment and on personal explorations from the Mackenzie Mountains to the Arctic Coast. She was the official photographer for the government of the Northwest Territories from 1982-1992, and received the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002 for her service to the northern communities. Co-author of eight books, her photo library consists of more than 10,000 images.
Artist Ed Bartram has spent his lifetime documenting the rocks and scenes of Georgian Bay.