Shield Country

The Canadian Shield is a distinct ecological region that forms the evergreen, granite-studded crown stretching across two-thirds of North America. In size, it approximates western Europe with one percent the number of people. A satellite view of the region on a winter's night shows tiny, widely scattered blips of light-islands of human settlement adrift in a sea of subarctic wilderness. In age, the shield's primeval bedrock dates to the beginning of earthly time. Shield Country unfolds a fascinating story of unrivaled Precambrian geology, of wild rivers and millions of pristine lakes, of an ecological junction where subarctic and arctic climates, plants, birds, and mammals weave a richly textured wilderness fabric.