810-bincaster Farming, Saturday, February 1,1986 Canada's sld on ancient foundation STE.-JOVTTE, Quebec - From the air, Canada’s Laurentian Mountains spread toward the horizon like a vast, crumpled blanket. Bare knobs of granite push through the green canopy of trees. Lakes polished silver by the sun glitter in every direction. During the snowy winters, the forests stand out as though etched in charcoal. Standing above it all is Mount Tremblant, which dominates the surrounding landscape, and each winter serves as a kind of beacon for thousands of skiers. Just an hour or two north of Montreal, the Laurentians offer a choice of 30 major ski centers with vertical drops of as much as 2,300 feet. Continent’s First Tow Special attractions for skiers are a tradition in the Laurentians, where the first rope tow in North America began hauling the hardy as early as 1932. Set up in the small town of Shawbridge, the tow operated through a system of pulleys put in motion by one of the wheels of a four-cylinder Chrysler perched on blocks. It cost 25 cents a tow, but a public clamor eventually forced the entrepreneur to offer unlimited rides for two dollars a day. When the spring thaw set in, the car was taken off the blocks to double as the town’s taxi. “Nowadays, it’s mainly the variety of the terrain that attracts people to the region,” says Reel Charette, who directed the snow Eagle Ski School near Ste.-Jovite for 35 years. “The intermediate slopes are ideal for family skiing and for teaching beginners, but I . BLACK 2. PEACH 3. YELLOW *. BLUE 5. BROWN TNB iSLLOUJSHAFTED FUCK ER. IS7HB 6R£PT€ST£N£Mf OF ne moo- BORING IN' sscrs uihich mmKooß 7Rees. /rsßoum trtoo DRUMMING ON RNOUOUi UMB RND/TS RAPIP CON CUR- CUN RBR£NT£P IN RRPIP SUCCBSS/0N RR£ NBRRP fNTNB SPRING. 7N£ fuckfr's Nesr/NO NOCS/S FOUND/N TR££S. trails rest there’s enough height in the mountains to create difficult runs for advanced downhillers.” Like Charette, many of the in structors impart a certain Gallic elan with their lessons. French is heard as often as English on the slopes, and it’s easy to imagine that one is skiing in the French Alps or Switzerland rather than North America. This illusion is heightened on a snowy evening in the region’s small skiing com munities, with their log chains, chalets, and brightly painted wood frame houses. The thousands of skiers at tracted to the Laurentians each year may not realize it, but they’re schussing over some of the oldest rocks in the world. “Some of the rocks may be 2.5 billion years old, but they were reworked in a new mountian building process about 1.1 billion years ago, which makes them appear younger,” says Dr. Jacques G. Martignole, a University of Montreal geologist. “Two subcontinents may have collided around that time. The result may have been a towering mountain range just north of the St. Lawrence River. The moun tains have eroded through the eons.” Lava Worked Upward Probably as a result of this collision, molten rock from as deep as 100 miles below the earth’s surface rose and worked itself into the crust, where it solidified to form large bodies of rock called plutons. “Plutons of anorthosite rock are commonly referred to as black granite,” says Martignole. “Banks 6. ORAM6E 7. GREENJ 8. LTBROWKI 9. LT. BLUE 10. LTGREEM Answers ueui/wous, cimuuuuuqy iiyij <ioijv»vuis isoub vu up here use it a lot in their interiors and exteriors. It gives them a dignified look.” About 70 percent of the anor thosite plutons in the world are found in Canada, and roughly 30 percent are clustered in eastern Quebec, he estimates. The largest anorthosite pluton in Laurentian ski country is around Ste.-Agathe-des-Monts. Roughly circular, it covers about 1,600 square miles. Another pluton in the Lac Ste.-Jean region covers about 8,000 square miles, says Mar tignole. Concentrations of plutons and much older rocks appear north of the Laurentians, which form the southeastern edge of the immense Canadian Shield. Sometimes called the Lauren tian Highlands, the shield covers 2 £ 1 rti from a land that s so far north In summer there s no night, My eyes are round and golden And my feathers are all white You'll see the lemmings leaping When they know 1 m on the prowl But few escape the talons of A great big snow _ My spotted coat is thick and warm My nickname is the ounce I’m very quick and graceful As from rock to rock I pounce I hue in Asian mountains And though 1 may scare a shepherd I feast on wild sheep and goats Did you guess me^ Snow - You’ve often seen me pictured In a pool all bteamy-hut ’Cause when the water s freezing That warm water hits the spot' So though the other animals Might think I'm somewhat funky It’s the best way to survive If you’re a Japanese snow SNOW NAME GAME Lots of animals have the word snow as part of their names. Using the clues in the poems, can you guess who they are? I '•t ilht lull i VHJS T *>jlKiLii YIOUS [Ukdl) '| YUUJ* million square miles of Canada and the Upper Midwest of the United States. Its ancient core of Precambrian rock called a shield because of its shape and long stability forms the heart and foundation of the North American continent. The shield is so complex that a century of careful study has revealed only a broad outline of its structure. In the heart of other mountain ranges, pioneering geologists saw rocks like those exposed on the shield. These rocks suggested to them that shields may be the wom-down cores of old mountains. Reduced By Weather Rain and snow, freezes and thaws, torrents and glaciers • • I • • it • I » • • V* *- \» *1 • \\*•• * My flocks fly overhead in Vs My voice is like a horn 1 stop to test in marshes Or in stubble fields of i out 1 fly north in the spnnylime But when autumn winds cut loose I head back south quite quit kle Wheie theres food foi a snow My name comes from my yieat biq Icel That help me cross the snow (And 1 need help fot bobcats c base Me everywheie 1 ejoh 1 m often called a labbil And while sonic folks wouldn I e m I el lathet tbelt you e ill me By my teal name snow Now I m d mysU ry cruatuiu i hdt I know you iu sum to yu 1 in said to haunt thu mountains And thu valluys of T ibut My footprints show up all atouml Cornu find mu if you tan Oh wouldnt it bu nual to suu Thu Snow JS lYiu/VYI US reduced the mountaintops. As a result, rocks that had been sub jected to heat and high pressure deep within mountain ranges became exposed. These are dismembered parts of the shield. “Rocks more than 3.5 billion years old have been found in the northeastern part of the shield on the Labrador coast,” says Anthony Davidson, a research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada. The shield has a lot more to offer than old rocks. Besides being the source of valubable minerals, its surface supports vast areas of commercial timber. And most Canadians can escape into this region of forests, lakes, and ski slopes by traveling less than 100 miles. / \ '' I- 6-66 °~7&£’AAi
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