Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Lowlands
[1] The East Lowland includes Anticosti Island, Îles de Mingan, and extends to the Strait of Belle Isle.
[1] It is the smallest of Canada's seven physiographic regions — the others being the Arctic Lands, the Cordillera, the Interior Plains, the Canadian Shield, the Hudson Bay Lowlands and the Appalachian Uplands — distinguished by topography and geology.
The Frontenac Axis, a wedge of the Canadian Shield that protruded southwards into the northern United States, separates the St. Lawrence Lowlands in Quebec from southern Ontario.
[3] The Geological Survey of Canada published an updated map in 2014 defining the boundaries of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands physiographic region.
The characteristic of this area, which was "entirely covered by glaciers during parts of the Pleistocene", are "lakes, poorly drained depressions, morainic hills, drumlins, eskers, outwash plains, and other glacial features."
[3] The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands is listed as one of Canada's seven physiographic regions, which in turn have their own subregions and divisions—distinguished by topography and geology.
The other physiographic regions are the Canadian Shield, the Hudson Bay Lowland, the Arctic Lands, the Interior Plains, the Cordillera, and the Appalachian Uplands.
[5][9][6] The landforms of the Great Lake – St. Lawrence Lowlands, with its rolling hills and slopes, were carved by glacial streams.
The Frontenac Axis, is an exposure of Canadian shield rocks that extends south to the St. Lawrence River near Kingston, creating the Thousand Islands.
Thus, the primary defining historic feature of the lowlands is the presence of deep soils within the watershed and estuary of the St. Lawrence River.
This feature occurs in more than one distinct Peninsular Ontario south and west of and the surrounding area, including the lower Ottawa Valley and St. Lawrence below the Thousand Islands, as far as Quebec City.
[16] Three aquifers of the St. Maurice Delta Complex in the Central St. Lawrence Lowlands provide drinking water for Trois-Rivières and most of the other municipalities in the region.
[20] Historically, the lower Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Valley region attracted European immigrants and United Empire Loyalists with its "diversified resource base".
[2]: 13–20 Southern Ontario's Golden Horseshoe and the St. Lawrence lowlands formed Canada's industrial and manufacturing heartland.
"[20] With its dense population and an economy valued at about $CDN 5.8 trillion in 2014, industries in the Lowlands provide about 50 million jobs.
[20] Characteristic wildlife includes the black bear, grey wolf, coyote, beaver, snowshoe hare, white-tailed deer, lynx, moose, and otter.
The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands was the traditional lands of the Mohawk—the most easterly tribe of the Iroquoian-speaking Haudenosaunee Confederacy,[25] the Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples, and the Cree—one of the largest groups of First Nations in North America.
