Rolf sent me this
interesting card showing grain elevators in the prairies in Canada.
The Canadian Prairies is a region of Canada,
specifically in Western Canada, which may correspond to
several different definitions, natural or political. Notably, the Prairie
provinces or simply the Prairies comprise the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba,
as they are partially covered by prairie(grasslands).
In a more restricted sense, the term may also refer only to the areas of those
provinces covered by prairie. Prairie also covers portions of
northeastern British Columbia, though that province is
typically not included in the region in a political sense.
The word prairie usually
refers to a type of grassland, and true prairies occur only in the
southern reaches of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Contrasted to this are
other biomes such as the boreal forest taking up the
majority of the Prairie Provinces, or the aspen parkland.
However "the prairies" may
also refer to all of the Interior Plains region within Canada, in
contrast with the Rocky Mountains and Canadian Shield, and is a
continuation of the Great Plains region of the United States.
It may also refer to all of the farmland
in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, a definition based on
human use, which includes all of the aspen parkland biome.
