the canadian wilderness - some fun facts 🥸
Book #2 of the Darkwater Lake Mystery series, A Swimmer is Dead, is now widely available in all good ebook retailers. Book #1, A Writer is Dead, is in Kindle Unlimited – something for everyone, I hope!
Now that I am siting this new series in the Canadian Shield country, I thought you might like to know a bit about it, things most people don’t know.
First, the Canadian Shield is as old as an area can be, over 2.5 billion years old, maybe the most accessible bedrock on Planet Earth. It was exposed by the ice ages and now, after some 10,000 years (a mere blip in time) from the last one, it is either covered by a thin layer of soil or water or uncovered exposing that ancient rock, perhaps with some lichen and mosses in crevices.
But underneath that layer that seems as if it has been totally unmoving forever, the rock is gradually shifting. It is tilting and rising, but extremely slowly. Why? Because that huge ice layer in the last ice age was incredibly heavy and now that it’s gone, the pressure has been relieved and the earth is trying to rebalance itself. Not any time soon, though: it will take a further 50 million years to get back to where it was!
The lakes and rivers were gouged out by the ice sheet as it moved southward. Another fun fact is that more than 30% of the earth’s freshwater is in the Canadian Shield. Anyone flying over it can guess that. In fact, only 30%? It looks a whole lot more.
Indigenous hunter gatherer peoples, ancestors of the First Nations people today colonised the Canadian Shield over 8,000 years ago. They fished, hunted game, and gathered edible vegetation to take advantage of abundant resources. Petroglyphs carved into rocky cliffs and boulders date back thousands of years and can be seen today. These rock carvings and paintings were sacred recordings of spiritual beliefs, events, and symbols for the Shield's first inhabitants.
I have seen patches of polished pink granite in the woods, looking like the granite counter tops in countless kitchens. How did that come about? The polishing came from little bits of grit and sand caught between the bedrock granite and the ice age ice sheet that buffed the incredibly hard granite as it moved over the rock just like the manufacturers of kitchen counters do now.
And the Canadian Shield country is beautiful, partly because civilisation is kept at bay by governmental regulations (no more buying of Crown Land there) so signs of humanity are few, but mostly because of the combination of clean waters, ancient rock, primeval forests and clear, clear air. And the wild blueberries, of course.
FREEBIES – yes, again!
January sees another collection of free mystery and thriller books. As I’ve stated before, authors put these free books up so you can sample their writing style, many of which are introduction to a series. Have a gawk at this lot! You can download one or twenty-one (actually no limit!)
Keep safe, friends,