Canada is the Federal Multiparty Parliamentary State with Sovereign Monarchy with the population about 31,186 mm (2002 estim.). Its area is 9,976,139 sq km (3,851,809 sq mi).

CANADA

GETTING TO KNOW CANADA

1. INTRODUCING CANADA

Canada is the Federal Multiparty Parliamentary State with Sovereign Monarchy with the population about 31,186 mm (2002 estim.). Its area is 9,976,139 sq km (3,851,809 sq mi).

The major cities in Canada are Toronto (about 4 mln), Montre­al (about 3,2 mln), Vancouver (more than 1,6 mln), Ottawa (922 thousand), Edmonton and Calgary (about 800 thousand each). Winnipeg and Quebec (about 700 thousand each).

Topographically, Canada is divided into five regions: the Atlantic provinces, consisting of rolling plains and rugged coast the Great Lakes-St Lawrence fertile lowlands, most densely populated; the Canadian Shield, as a whole accounting for almost 50% of the land area, with rocky, frozen subsoil and treeless plains in the north and thick forests to the south; the interior plains with large deposits of oil and potash; and the Cordillera region.

The country's chief rivers include the Yukon and Mackenzie in the west, the North Saskatchewan, South Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan and the Athabasca Rivers in central Canada as well as Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers in the east.

The country's highest point is Mount Logan at 5,951 metres (19,525 feet) which is located on the Yukon territory. The largest lands are those in the Arctic Archipelago, extending from St. James Bay to Ellesmere while on the Western coast they are Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Islands, as well as Newfound­land, Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton and some others, and Anticosti Island on the eastern coast.

Canada is divided into ten self-governing provinces and two territories which are administered by the federal government.

Canada's ten provinces from east to west are Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Co­lumbia. To the north are two territories – the Yukon and North­west Territory.

Quebec is Canada's largest province. Quebec's first settlers were French, and French is the language spoken most often here. French is also one of the two official languages of Canada. Al­though most of the French Canadians in the cities are completely bilingual, many in the smaller towns and in the country speak only French as the language of their forebears. Their life is often based on the traditions of yesterday, traditions jealously guarded and passed on through generations.

Canada's largest city is the Quebec city of Montreal, which is built around a mountain on a green island in the middle of the St Lawrence. Although Montreal is located 1,000 miles from the ocean, it is a seaport, one of Canada's most important. It is indeed 4 beautiful city with all its parks, avenues and streets, the distinguishing feature being the Mount Royal, 750ft. high. Here, on the top of the mountain, you can take a ride in a horse-driven carriage, walk through the wooded trails of Beaver Lake and then gaze down upon the city from spectacular lookouts. The Victoria Jubilee Bridge spans the St Lawrence River and is used as a thoroughfare farther west.

In Old Montreal, cobblestone streets evoke three centuries of history. You may wish to visit Notre Dame Basilica and the Bonsecours Market, the Olympic Stadium, the Biodome and Botanical Gardens as well as allowing some time to explore the fashion stores and museums.

Montreal has been host to prestigious world events, such Expo 67, the 1976 Olympics, and is home to the International Jazz Festival, the Montreal Formula 1 Grand Prix and the Montreal World Film Festival. Montreal is also well known for its surrounding areas such as the Eastern Townships, a delightful drive from the city.

Quebec City is built upon a rock rising straight up out of the St Lawrence River. North of the St Lawrence Valley lies a giant horse-shoe-shaped stretch of land extending from Labrador in the east all the way over to Lake Winnipeg in the west. This is the Canadian Shield.

The Canadian Shield is an area of very ancient rock covering about 1.8 million square miles centered on Hudson Bay, extend­ing west and north from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arctic Ocean. It is a region of rounded hills, numerous lakes and muskeg (swamp). The Shield contains a wealth of minerals.

Ontario has a shape somewhat like a giant's leg. On the heel of Ontario's foot sits Ottawa, capital of the nation. Its neo-Gothic Parliament buildings look like the Houses of Parliament, and its traditions seem honed by Buckingham Palace. The city has a green-belt of more than 40,000 acres within the city that provides recreation areas and paths for bicycling and walking and for cross-­country skiing in winter. Every spring, millions of tulips bloom, a gift from Queen Juliana of the Netherlands to the people of Can­ada for sheltering her and her family during World War II. All this is the setting for dozens of festivals, seasonal sports, and cultural and ethnic celebrations throughout the year.

There are many reasons why Ottawa – in 1854 an inconsiderable village named Bytown – was chosen as the seat of govern­ment instead of a settled city such as Toronto, Montreal, Quebec or Kingston, one of those reasons was fear: in 1858 Queen Victoria (British Queen, 1837-1900) was advised by her Ministers to proclaim the roaring lumberjacks' town which is now Ottawa to be the capital of her Upper and Lower Canadian colonies (Ontario and Quebec), because it was more than a hundred miles from the boundary and therefore less accessible to raiding parties from the south. A second and equally potent reason for the selection was that Ottawa stood at the crossroads of French and English speaking Canada.

Toronto is the capital of the province of Ontario and the second city in Canada. Although it has not such a favourable situation as Montreal, being neither an ocean port, nor on the direct railway line from east to west, it is the gateway to south-western Ontario, the wealthiest and most densely populated part of Canada.

Toronto – the Indian word for 'meeting place' - lives up to its name in race relations: its inhabitants are British, Italians, Chinese, Portuguese, Greeks, French, Germans, Ukrainians, Poles, black Caribbians, Indo-Pakistans,Vietnamese. This has resulted in an unparalleled choice of places to eat – thousands of restaurants ranging from Hungarian cafes to Portuguese coffee shops, to Mexican eateries, to Jamaican food shops, and tons of Chinese restaurants.

The University of Toronto with its affiliated colleges (Victoria College, Trinity College and St Michael's College) is the largest in Canada and is noted for its high academic standing.

The Niagara River and the falls at Niagara are not only at the top of any list of places to visit, but they were of great importance in the history of Canada. It was via Niagara route that many of the early Loyalist settlers came to Canada (which had the status of the British territory) from the United States, as they opposed the separation of North America from Britain. Here were the early settlements in Ontario, and here today is the great fruit-growing area of the province. The Niagara country was a scene of much of the action of the War of 1612-1614, when British regulars backed by Loyalist militia repulsed an inefficient attempt by United States troops to drive Great Britain from the North American continent. Soon on the great falls became a barrier prohibiting movement of men and goods to and from the west. It was then that Canada began building the series of canals, known by the name Welland, which made possible the shipping of the Great Lakes to bypass the great waterfall and the rapids of the Niagara River.

potash хим. поташ, углекислый калий

adjacent соседний, близлежащий

forebears предки

distinguishing отличительный

trail тропа

gaze пристально смотреть, вглядываться

spectacular захватывающий

lookout наблюдательный пункт

thoroughfare путь сообщения

cobblestone булыжник

evoke вызывать (воспоминание)

host (be a host, to host) хозяин (принимать гостей)

muskeg озерное болото, жидкая торфяная почва

swamp болото

recreation отдых

cross-country пересеченная местность

setting окружающая обстановка, окружение, обрамление

lumberjack (=lumberman) лесоруб; торговец лесом

accessible доступный

affiliated присоединенный как филиал

repulse отражать, отбивать (атаку)

troops войска

prohibit запрещать

bypass обойти, обходить

rapids пороги

2. THE PRARlE PROVINCES

The Prairie Provinces (Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan were built by people of many lands – by Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, Poles, Icelanders and Dutch, 1 Restless men from eastern farmlands and by the Scots who settled here first. Many of these people, while building this, have retained the traditional holidays and church rites, the songs, sto­nes and dances of their native lands. Their customs, their ways of life, are woven into the fabric of Canada.

Manitoba, roughly the size of France, has in addition to its wheat farms in the south, rich mines of gold, copper and nickel. Many rivers and large lakes make fishing also an important commercial industry. In Manitoba only a very small area along the south-western border is a genuine prairie. About a third of the province is thinly forested plain. The rest of Manitoba, like more than half of Canada, lies on the Canadian Shield, a wild region of rocky hills and valleys, criss-crossed with rivers and lakes. The capital is Win­nipeg, Gateway to Western Canada, in the south of the province.

Saskatchewan and Alberta were the last of the Canadian prov­inces to be settled.

Saskatchewan is a leading producer of uranium ore, which is found in the north along with rich forests and an important lumbering industry. This province also has great spouting oil wells and, in the south, important beds of coal. Wheat is also the main product of Saskatchewan. The beauty of the wheatlands is best seen from the 4air, a soft green blanket in June, in August a thick golden harvest on the seemingly endless prairie, and after a harvest a remarkable geometric pattern showing how the grain in each field has been cut. to capital of Saskatchewan is Regina. Saskatoon, the second largest city of the province, is the site of the University of Saskatchewan.

Alberta, bounded by Rocky Mountains in the west, is the largest of the Prairie Provinces. Alberta has tremendous oil fields and vast resources of natural gas and coal. Edmonton, the capital, is the oil center of Canada. The name of Calgary is often mentioned worldwide in connection with the Calgary Stampede, which is a national event staged each summer and seems to grow bigger and more famous each year. Stampedes were a feature of the Canadian West when cowboys from the ranches gathered to compete in cattle-branding, roping, calf-tying and other events that displayed the skills they employed in their daily tasks. Nowadays the Calgary Stampede is a highly organized civic occasion, one of Canada's great shows, as western in flavour as the broad plains and their cattle, even though much of what the Stampede represents from the way of life of yesterday's cow town.

rite обряд, церемония

weave (wove, woven) ткать, вплетать

fabric ткань

wheat пшеница

plain равнина

ore руда

lumbering лесоразработки

spout бить струей

oil well нефтяная скважина

bed of coal угольный пласт, залегание угля

field месторождение

stampede состязание ковбоев, проводимое в г. Калгари в штате Альберта

cattle крупный рогатый скот

brand выжигать клеймо

roping набрасывание веревочной петли (лас­со)

calf-tying связывание ног теленку

civic гражданский

3. THE MOST WESTERN PROVINCE

British Columbia is the most western province of Canada between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The province includes the entire Pacific Ocean seaboard of Canada and the adjacent islands, of which the largest are Vancouver Island and those of the Queen Charlotte Archipelago. Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, perches above a beach on the south-eastern tip of Vancouver Island. The two principal ports, the only Pacific ports of Canada, are Victoria and Vancouver.

The coasts are warmed by the currents, snow rarely falls (and melts quickly), roses bloom at Christmas, and one can play golf year-round. The same balmy climate blesses the sheltered Okanagan Val­ley about 160 miles east of Vancouver. But you'll find more extreme weather in the mountainous interior and in the northeast corner, which is an extension of the Great Plains. Only about 10 per cent of the territory is inhabited, and about three-quarters of the population of the province lives in two cities, Vancouver and Victoria.

The mountains of British Columbia are lean-ribbed, with sharp crags and rough edges, holding clear lakes in cup-like hollows. Here live big-horn sheep and nimble goats, moose, antelope and grizzly bears.

Cutting through the forests and mountains are many swift-run­ning rivers. Some provide electric power for mills and smelting plants. Many are spawning grounds for the fish which provide this province with one of its most important industries.

adjacent соседний, близлежащий

perch располагаться на холме (о городе)

bloom цвести

balmy приятный

bless благословлять, осчастливливать

shelter прикрывать, прятать

crag скала, утес

nimble проворный, ловкий
moose (pl.без измен.) американский лось

grizzly bear медведь гризли

mill мельница; фабрика, завод

smelting plant плавильня, плавильный завод

spawning ground место нереста

4. CANADA'S NORTH

Canada's north is wide and varied, and covers almost one third of the nation. To the west, in the territory of Yukon, there are mountains and plateaus cut through with rivers. The Northwest Territories take in all the islands of the Arctic, but the Northwest also has a valley of gardens and fields surrounding the towns that line the banks of the Mackenzie River.

The Arctic isn't all frozen tundra. In some places wild straw berries, cranberries, dandelions and other flowers grow in thick knee-high carpets.

Seals and caribou have always provided the Eskimos with most of the needs – food, clothing, fuel, light and shelter. Canvas tents have replaced the seal tents for summer living in most places, but the igloo is still the winter home.

The Eskimo is a very creative man. He lives where there are few raw materials, yet he has invented an amazing number of things. Not only tents, canoes and tailored clothes of skins, but combs and buttons of ivory, dog sleds, snowshoes, goggles to pro­tect his eyes from the glare of ice, games and toys for his children, lamps, spoons, pipes and tools - all these he has made.

cranberry клюква

dandelion одуванчик

seal тюлень

caribou карибу (северный канадский олень)

shelter кров

ivory слоновая кость

sled (=sledge) сани

snowshoes снегоступы

goggle защитные или темные очки

glare ослепительный блеск

PEOPLE AND LANGUAGES

1. LINGUISTIC SITUATION: GENERAL SURVEY

The population consists of either Anglo-Canadian or French-Canadian descendants with about 34% of the population of British origin, about 26% of French origin and also about 26% of other European origin. The indigenous American Indian (Amerindian) and Eskimo groups represent only 1.5% of the population. The Canadian Amerindians are distinguished into 7 cultural groups (ac­cording the territorial distribution), and the Eskimo tribes.

Canada remains bilingual. The official languages are English and French, as about 61% of the population speak English as their native while 24% speak French. The remainder have a native tongue other than French or English.

One-fourth of its people, living mostly in the province of Que­bec, have French as their mother tongue. Those provinces in which French is spoken as a mother tongue by 10 percent or more of the population are described as "federal bilingual districts" in the Official Languages Bill of 1968.

Today, urbanization, quick transport, and television have tend­ed to level out some dialectal differences in Canadian English, though the influence of United States English is strong, being felt least in the Maritime Provinces and Newfoundland, Nevertheless, in spite of the effect of this proximity to the United States, British influences are still potent in some of the larger cities; Scottish influences arc well sustained in Ontario.

The most surprising thing about the English currently used now in Canada is its homogeneity. Regional differences exist, but they are subtle.

Canadian French is a stable and well-defined language. It has a strong and well-defined literary tradition.

Canada has two literatures – one in French as well as one in English. The Canadian novel in English begins with John Richardson, James DeMille, William Kirby. It enriched world literature with the historical novels of Sir Gilbert Parker, the western romances of Ralph Connor and Lucy Maud Montgomery, the prairie novels of Robert Stead and Frederick Philip Grove. Much was contributed by Morley Callaghan, Robertson Davies, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Brian Moore and others.

indigenous местный

remainder оставшаяся часть, остаток

proximity близость

sustain поддерживать

homogeneity однородность

subtle едва различимый

2. CULTURE AND RECREATION

Canada has become a cultural mosaic in which immigrant groups have been able to retain much of their ethnic culture. The culture of the English-speaking Canadian people is a blend of British and American influences; that of the French-speaking peo­ple blends French and American influences. In general, the way of life, family structure, cuisine, and dress are closer to those of the United States than to those of Britain or France.

Canadians, enjoying ever-increasing amounts of leisure time, are able to participate in a wide array of sports and other recre­ational activities. Several of the sports played in Canada are de­rived from those of the indigenous peoples or the early settlers. Lacrosse, adopted as Canada's national game at the time of Соnfederation, was played by Indians in all parts of the country and adopted by later immigrants. By 1867 definite rules had been established, and the game had become organized. Ice hockey is also Canadian in tradition and leadership.

Other team sports have been more strongly influenced by the recreational interests of the United States. The Canadian Football League (CFL) plays a football game only slightly different from that of the United States. Winter sports widely enjoyed by Canadians, as both participants and spectators, include curling, ice skating, and downhill and cross-country skiing. From spring through fall? recreational activities include fishing, hunting, hiking, golf and water sports.

The national holiday of Canada, Canada Day (formerly, until 1982 Dominion Day), is observed on July 1. It commemorates the formation of the Dominion of Canada on July 1,1867 (In 1864 a meeting was held in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, by representatives of Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick and after three years of negotiations federation was achieved. Subsequent to the passage of the British North America Act, other provinces joined the union). It is celebrated with pa­rades, fireworks, display of the flag, and the singing of the nation­al anthem, О Canada.

cuisine кухня (поваренное искусство)

аrrау множество

lacrosse спорт, лакросс

curling керлинг (шотландская игра)

subsequent to после

3. CANADA BROKE A TRADITION

You may know that the first postage stamp was introduced in 1840 in England. Some time later other countries of the world decided to have stamps, too. Letters with different stamps on them began traveling all over the world. On many stamps of the world people could see the portraits of kings and queens.

Canada was probably the first country to break away from the traditional portrait of the monarch on its stamps: its first stamp had its central motif a beaver. This is remarkable because Canada was among the first few nations of the world to issue postage stamps, and it was a British colony, which meant that it had to the traditional portrait of Queen Victoria on its stamps.

The reason for this breakaway from tradition is not known. The beaver was an important animal in the economy of Canada at that time. As we may think now, it was considered more important than the ruling monarch, and that is why it was illustrated the postage stamp.

postage stamp почтовая марка

beaver бобр

breakaway отход (от традиций)

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