Canada
Bears and wolves roam the Wilderness areas of the world's Second-largest country - a land of frozen. Wastes, fertile prairies and abundant waters
A land of climatic and geographical extremes and a great diversity of peoples, Canada is the world's second-largest country after the USSR. The Trans-Canada highway spans 8000 km (5000 miles) from NEWFOUNDLAND to BRITISH COLUMBIA, and it takes four days and five nights to cross the country by train.
Winter temperatures can dip to - 62°C (- 80°F) in the arctic north, yet summer temperatures of 27°C (81°F) are commonplace in towns and cities to. The south. In fact the southernmost part of Canada is at the same latitude as Rome and northern California. Most of the country's 25 million people live within a narrow strip along the American border. Almost two out of every three live in ONTARIO or QUEBEC.
With nearly four-fifths of this enormous land uninhabited, nature lovers can readily explore vast stretches of unspoilt countryside or pitch camp where the only neighbors may be black or grizzly bears. Moose, caribou, elk and wolves also roam the wilderness, and the inland waters abound with salmon, trout, bass and pike. Canada has more lakes than any other country.
The world's most famous police force is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police - the Mounties - who stand as a symbol of Canada in their red ceremonial tunics. Now they are an 8000-strong federal force, but there were only 300 of them when they were formed to check frontier lawlessness in 1873.
The Mounties were involved in one of the most dramatic, episodes in Canadian history, the KLONDIKE Gold Rush. Gold was discovered in Bonanza Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River in the YUKON TERRITORY in 1896. When
word of the strike reached the outside world it sent 100 000 men, and a few women, stampeding to the wild northwest of Canada.
Over six years the Klondike yielded more than US$100 million in gold - worth many times that today. Many people became rich, some went mad with hardship and gold fever, while others died or were killed in a reckless society of gold-robbers, gambling saloons and rowdy dance halls, policed by a few Mounties.
Travel is an opportunity to learn, whether geography, languages, history or other subjects.
"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page", St. Augustine said. Here at www.travel-university.org we believe that every page must be read and explored. Travel is an avenue of learning that no text or classroom can teach. The world is a living classroom and you the student. We invite you to the www.travel-university.org library where you can read general interest and detail oriented articles.
