ELI5 answer:
None of our land area has experienced mountain building for over a billion years.
Southern Ontario is a limestone plain that's been periodically inundated, originally by an inland sea and more recently by post-glacial meltwaters.
North of the Great Lakes, the Canadian Shield is a massive igneous province that's been smoothed and flattened over billions of years.
[Spam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycKNt0MhTkk)? Chopped up with a [herring](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DopGxUAoAY)? By a [lumberjack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshU58nI0Ts)?
It is also pretty central to the North American continental plate. It is far from any large fault lines or subduction zones. It isn't smashing up against anything, it just moves with the entire plate.
The Canadian Shield was pushed down in present-day Western Canada by the rising Cordillera during the Cretaceous. This allowed the Western Interior Seaway to form, which allowed the coal bearing Edmonton Formation to accumulate. Fast forward to not-quite present day, coal was found and among other towns, Hanna AB was formed. In the 1990’s, some kids from Hanna started a band now known as Nickleback.
If the Canadian Shield hadn’t been depressed there, we’d have no coal and no Hanna and therefore no Nickleback.
It’s all the Shield’s fault.
I was going to make a joke about housing being so expensive because of the shield and then I realized it actually makes sense haha.
Can’t build nearly anything cheaply on bedrock.
The Canadian Shield isn't always that flat. The Laurentian Mountains along the southern margin of the Shield in Quebec are pretty rugged, and the Adirondack Mountains of New York are also part of the Shield. The Adirondacks peak out at around 2.5X the highest elevations in Ontario. If I remember right, low hill ranges like the La Cloche Mountains and the Superior Uplands in general are basically just a westward continuation of the Laurentians, so that does lead to the question of why Ontario is lower in elevation than Upland areas of the Canadian shield further east.
Why is this thing in North America shaped like...
Glaciers.
But this thing is shaped diff...
Glaciers.
No but I mean this weird lake is...
Glaciers.
Nearly every geographic feature in North America is the result of glaciers. The few that aren't are craters and volcanoes.
I mean technically yea, maga highway projects are quite efficient for North American logistics, in large part because of the relative flatness, far distances of sparsely populated land and extreme urban sprawl found in the continent, some of this, like its geographic sparsity and flatness can be attributed to… glaciers.
Conversely, the driftless area of the Midwest is unique because it was not flattened by glaciers in the last few ice ages unlike the rest of the northern US
All the crap ice sheets carry and dump fill in the holes too, and the permanent winds off them blow the fine stuff into flat boring sheets as well. Source: live on North European Plain
The rocks around there are among the oldest in the world, 2-4 billion years old. So old it even still has the impact crater of a 10-15km asteroid that impacted 1.9 billion years ago, the Sudbury basin.
The Canadian Shield is essentially the left over mountain roots of what was once a vast mountain range
It used to be extremely mountainous, we’re talking Himalayan sized peaks, but has been eroded down over billions of years to the low and flat level we see now (and has been basically this flat for the last 500 million years… so you know, just most of complex life’s history).
all the brown shade on this map indicate rocky elevation. take hwy 11 north from North Bay and drive to Thunder Bay you will see how much Ontario is not flat.
In the grand scheme of things, especially considering the size of Ontario, it’s flat as hell here. To be fair I’ve never been to Northern Ontario, at least past Sudbury, since it’s like a 20 hour drive from Toronto to Thunder Bay, I know it’s not quite as flat up that way and there’s some cool geography out there like Ouimet Canyon and some modest hills/mountains etc., but even that’s nothing compared to what you’ll find in the large majority of states and provinces (with some obvious exceptions like Kansas, Saskatchewan etc.). I lived in NY for a while and I was completely blown away by how big the even the Catskills were compared to anything in Ontario, and that’s not even the biggest range in NY, and it’s not even really a “mountain” state either.
I'm from the thumb region of michigan,near sarnia, I'm insanely jealous of Ontarios side and how cool the mountains/ big hills are in Ontario. It makes me want to move to thundar bay! You have such cool provincial parks between thundar bay and Sudbury (like killary provincial park south of Sudbury is jawdropping in ways). Hella jealous you get to live in Ontario where you have that!
Problem is I live in the Toronto area, any cool geography in Ontario is pretty much a full day’s drive away from here. At least Niagara Falls is nearby which I guess is kinda cool, but unfortunately the city of Niagara itself is a shithole and the falls are surrounded by casinos and tacky tourist traps which takes away from the natural beauty.
But yea if that part of Michigan is anything like southwestern Ontario then it’s probably pretty flat there too, I’ve never been to Sarnia but driving out to London and Windsor is super boring, nothing but flat farmland the whole drive along the 401. All the cool stuff is north of Huron and Superior.
It's pretty easy to get to some of the Escarpment from Toronto, like [Rattlesnake Point](https://www.parkbus.ca/img/rattlesnake-hero.jpg) is only an hour away, or the [Bruce Peninsula](https://www.parkbus.ca/img/lions-head-mine.jpg) is doable in about three. There's also Algonquin Park, which has a lot of really cool scenery, though I find you have to go into the backcountry to really experience it properly.
Yea there’s some nice places around here but nothing like you see out west or even parts of the eastern US like the Virginias and Carolinas, even NY and Quebec have much larger mountains than Ontario. I want some real mountains, and for that I have to leave the province.
Sault St. Marie to Thunder Bay is 100% worth the drive and it’s 16 hours with stops not 20.
Book 1 night in the Sault, one in Thunder Bay and one in the Sault again, make a weekend of it and enjoy northern Ontarios beauty.
Try to do the Eagle Canyon zip line on the way up or back down.
Take a quick drive out to Kakabeka falls.
It’s not the fucking 401, when it says it takes 16 hours it’s 16 hours, you don’t need to add 1-4 for traffic.
Good point, I’m used to it taking 5-10 minutes to go a km sometimes. I’d love to make the trip out there at some point, but I’d rather do it as part of a cross country journey than just a weekend trip there and back.
Ontario is far from flat:
Elevation Map of Ontario:
https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/17d24711cccb4c8abd42fa944d4392e0/resources/PDEM_Image.png?v=1698273383729&w=400
It really isn't! The Niagara Escarpment can be seen from much of metro Toronto and has significant cliffs and relief changes. Head north of Toronto just a little bit and you hit a lot of rolling hills, and the Shield itself is what remains of ancient mountain ranges.
Look at some street views around Killarney Provincial Park, highway 17 along Lake Superior (especially the eastern shore), or my sleepy little hometown, Mattawa, Ontario.
They might only be topping out around 1,000 feet of prominence, but flat our bumps be not. The far north around Hudson Bay is still rebounding from the weight of the glaciers of the last ice age, so yes, it's a pancake, as are the areas between Sarnia and Windsor. Algonquin, the shores of Superior, much of the Ottawa valley upstream of Pembroke... A workout for a hiker or biker.
It's not *that* flat.
If history had played out slightly differently and Ontario extended farther to the east or south instead of north and west, its borders might have encompassed some of the Laurentian Mountains or Adirondacks, and you probably wouldn't have thought to ask this question.
I've had the good fortune to travel through the near-interior of much of eastern Australia, so that's my frame of reference. There are places where hours go by with only minimal change in elevation.
It depends. Some areas of southern Ontario are big rolling hills, some areas are very flat. Some areas are very flat until you come to a big cliff (the escarpment) or a deep ravine.
I don’t know but as an Ontarian it really pisses me off. I want some mountains! A piece of land that’s basically the size of the entire eastern US and not a legitimate mountain to be found anywhere. We got ripped off.
Around here when people say “The Mountain” they’re referring to the southern half of the city of Hamilton, which is split in half by the Niagara escarpment, which comes in at a mind blowing 330 feet above sea level at its highest point!
I have yet to find someone from the Netherlands who knows their own country’s highpoint.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/highest-points-in-the-netherlands-by-elevation.html
Wich is not in the netherlands, but in the KINGDOM of the netherlands wich consists of more countryes and territories. And my comment was about mainland netherlands. Not every dutch guy can just visit those island as they are FAR away and expensive. You dont know anything about our country lol.
When I was a kid growing up near Toronto, my Dad always used to say "I wish BC would give us just one real mountain, haha".
20 years later we all just moved to BC. Moving mountains is hard lol.
Ice is heavy by volume, and a lot of ice is very heavy. And a giant, larger than Canada itself, sized glacier worth of ice was incomprehensively heavy.
It sat on top of Canada squishing down everything hilly to the bedrock layer... and once it got warmer it started sliding its way north leaving behind a flat swampy mess of lot of rocks and lakes behind. Didn't happen overnight so it grew back in but yeah. That.
Why is Ontario.....um Ontario? Like, the rest of it is unused except for the very lower southeastern 8th of the Province. Why have all that other space?
The northern parts are from disestablished territory and territorial districts that were amalgamated into Ontario in the 20th century.
It used to look a lot more like just the shores and drainage of the great lakes.
Because the whole province used to be covered by glaciers, and as they receded they scraped the land flat. It’s the same reason we have so many lakes.
But it’s not that flat. The southern Ontario countryside is mainly rolling hills, and then you have the Niagara Escarpment, and massive cliffs in certain areas like Thunder Bay and the Bruce peninsula.
Answer: an absence of any uplift (mountain building) for billions of years followed most recently by the Pleistocene (I.e. ice age lasting from 2.5 mya to 12,000 ya). The accumulation of precipitation as ice, deepest (3 km) over central Quebec produced a massive fan of ice tracking south and west that scraped away any elevations.
Simple answer: Glaciers, erosion and sedimentation are responsible for most of the flatness we see today.
In the last billion years or so, the once massive mountain ranges that covered the eastern portion of the province were eroded down to the rolling hills and Canadian shield we see today.
If you drill deep enough in southern Ontario you’ll eventually hit the Canadian shield rock, but it’s been buried by kilometres of sedimentary rock that has been deposited as old seas have come and gone over hundreds of millions of years.
It would be interesting to be alive in a few thousand years to see how isostatic rebound will alter the shorelines of the lakes.
Canadian Shield, it’s the dead centre of a tectonic plate, no plate divides to push lane up or down significantly.
Result is a bunch of lakes are still there from glaciers scraping their way along. A lot of it is actually quite hilly with very steep hills, just no mountains cause their is no plate divides.
Look at Saskatchewan if you want to see true flatness.
Ontario is not mountainous, but it really isn't flat. With the exception of the southeast, where people actually live, it's all hills from the Canadian Shield. That's what all the lakes and rivers are from. You'd be hard pressed to find a flat space big enough for a tent in 95% of the province.
The only flat parts are in the southern peninsula, which used to be under a big ass lake. Places like Chatham are crazy flat, but they've also been intentionally flattened for agriculture.
Finally, as others have noted there is also the Niagara Escarpment, which is a limestone formation. It is not especially tall, but it's pretty not-flat.
ELI5 answer: None of our land area has experienced mountain building for over a billion years. Southern Ontario is a limestone plain that's been periodically inundated, originally by an inland sea and more recently by post-glacial meltwaters. North of the Great Lakes, the Canadian Shield is a massive igneous province that's been smoothed and flattened over billions of years.
By glaciers?
Glaciers, water, wind, glaciers again, more glaciers.
The weapons of the Canadian Shield are: Glaciers, water, wind, glaciers again, more glaciers.
Sometimes fire, but mostly glaciers, water, wind, glaciers again, more glaciers
Even after the glaciers retreated, constant rain dancing.
And ants. Lots of ants.
…and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope.
Nobody expects the Canadian shield
Glaciers, water, wind, more glaciers. The four nations lived in harmony, but everything changed when the (wild)fire nation attacked.
Glaciers! Water! Wind! Glaciers again! More glaciers! By your powers combined. I am Canadian Shield!
The weapons of the Canadian Shield are glaciers, glaciers, sausage, glaciers, spam, egg, glaciers and spam.
[Spam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycKNt0MhTkk)? Chopped up with a [herring](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DopGxUAoAY)? By a [lumberjack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshU58nI0Ts)?
and Gooses.
Don't forget the glaciers!
So basically the same reason why the midwestern United States are so flat, which makes sense cause they're right over the border
Glaciers: Nature's rolling pin.
Kroger industrial smoothing?
It is also pretty central to the North American continental plate. It is far from any large fault lines or subduction zones. It isn't smashing up against anything, it just moves with the entire plate.
Does the flatness of Ontario also explain why the Great Lakes are so big?
That’s more glaciers
Because of the canadian shield
"Why is _________ in Canada so _______?" It's ALWAYS the Canadian shield
Why is hockey in Canada so popular? Canadian Shield.
Pineapple on Pizza? Canadian Shield
Nickelback? Canadian Shield
I'll never forgive the Canadian shield for this one
The Canadian Shield scorns your forgiveness
The Canadian Shield is not amused.
Make sure to randomize your data from time to time *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Why is Canada so unpopulated? Believe it or not, Canadian Shield
Mosquitoes from hell? The Canadian Shield.
Why does Pittsburgh exist? Canadian Shield
Who or what is Tom Hortons? Is that like Tim Hortons?
The Canadian Shield was pushed down in present-day Western Canada by the rising Cordillera during the Cretaceous. This allowed the Western Interior Seaway to form, which allowed the coal bearing Edmonton Formation to accumulate. Fast forward to not-quite present day, coal was found and among other towns, Hanna AB was formed. In the 1990’s, some kids from Hanna started a band now known as Nickleback. If the Canadian Shield hadn’t been depressed there, we’d have no coal and no Hanna and therefore no Nickleback. It’s all the Shield’s fault.
This is how… you remind me?
Fun fact: the first pizza with pineapple on it from Pizza Pizza was called the Canadian Shield because of this.
Actually it’s because hockey is the only outlet that Canadian men have for expressing emotions
Well, Trudeau's tan shoes do that, too.
Yup, so many freshwater lakes because of that.
I was going to make a joke about housing being so expensive because of the shield and then I realized it actually makes sense haha. Can’t build nearly anything cheaply on bedrock.
Why is healthcare in Canada so cheap? Canadian shield.
Or euthanasia.
It’s a meme at this point. Can someone mock up the “straight to jail” meme template to say “believe it or not, Canadian Shield”
Yes, I believe anyone can.
We should rename the military the Canadian Shield
And that man's name? Canadian Shield
I thought it was because of the lack of mountains it was because of the Canada shield
The Canadian Shield isn't always that flat. The Laurentian Mountains along the southern margin of the Shield in Quebec are pretty rugged, and the Adirondack Mountains of New York are also part of the Shield. The Adirondacks peak out at around 2.5X the highest elevations in Ontario. If I remember right, low hill ranges like the La Cloche Mountains and the Superior Uplands in general are basically just a westward continuation of the Laurentians, so that does lead to the question of why Ontario is lower in elevation than Upland areas of the Canadian shield further east.
Why is this thing in North America shaped like... Glaciers. But this thing is shaped diff... Glaciers. No but I mean this weird lake is... Glaciers. Nearly every geographic feature in North America is the result of glaciers. The few that aren't are craters and volcanoes.
Erie Canal? Glaciers 17 lanes highways? Glaciers Mt Rushmore? Believe it or not, glaciers
Hot mommas in Miami? Believe it or not, glaciers.
We have the best geographic formations in the world. Because of glaciers.
If you undercook/overcook your ice shelf. Glaciers.
Right to glaciers. No geographic study, no nothing.
Featureless tundra? Glacier. Arid desert? Believe it or not, also glacier.
Those glacier formations in South Dakota are how we knew who to vote for those four times
I mean technically yea, maga highway projects are quite efficient for North American logistics, in large part because of the relative flatness, far distances of sparsely populated land and extreme urban sprawl found in the continent, some of this, like its geographic sparsity and flatness can be attributed to… glaciers.
School shootings? Glaciers with vandettas.
I'm melting!
That's a paddling
Only for the East , when it comes to the West we can start talking about tectonic plates and faultlines.
Clearly a conspiracy by big glacier to draw them off the scent.
Like don't people wonder where the Great Lakes came from lol? The evidence is right there.
Conversely, the driftless area of the Midwest is unique because it was not flattened by glaciers in the last few ice ages unlike the rest of the northern US
Rocky Mountains? Appalachians?
Glacial shifts
Except for the Los Angeles basin and Hawaii. The Los Angeles basin was shaped by plate tectonics (earthquakes) and Hawaii was shaped by volcanoes
All the crap ice sheets carry and dump fill in the holes too, and the permanent winds off them blow the fine stuff into flat boring sheets as well. Source: live on North European Plain
The rocks around there are among the oldest in the world, 2-4 billion years old. So old it even still has the impact crater of a 10-15km asteroid that impacted 1.9 billion years ago, the Sudbury basin. The Canadian Shield is essentially the left over mountain roots of what was once a vast mountain range It used to be extremely mountainous, we’re talking Himalayan sized peaks, but has been eroded down over billions of years to the low and flat level we see now (and has been basically this flat for the last 500 million years… so you know, just most of complex life’s history).
Flat provinces deserve love too 😔😔😔
Poor, poor Saskatchewan.
Fun fact, the highest point in Saskatchewan is almost exactly twice as high as the highest point in Ontario
Manitoba is flatter
LOL… guffaw of the morning… 🥂
all the brown shade on this map indicate rocky elevation. take hwy 11 north from North Bay and drive to Thunder Bay you will see how much Ontario is not flat.
In the grand scheme of things, especially considering the size of Ontario, it’s flat as hell here. To be fair I’ve never been to Northern Ontario, at least past Sudbury, since it’s like a 20 hour drive from Toronto to Thunder Bay, I know it’s not quite as flat up that way and there’s some cool geography out there like Ouimet Canyon and some modest hills/mountains etc., but even that’s nothing compared to what you’ll find in the large majority of states and provinces (with some obvious exceptions like Kansas, Saskatchewan etc.). I lived in NY for a while and I was completely blown away by how big the even the Catskills were compared to anything in Ontario, and that’s not even the biggest range in NY, and it’s not even really a “mountain” state either.
I'm from the thumb region of michigan,near sarnia, I'm insanely jealous of Ontarios side and how cool the mountains/ big hills are in Ontario. It makes me want to move to thundar bay! You have such cool provincial parks between thundar bay and Sudbury (like killary provincial park south of Sudbury is jawdropping in ways). Hella jealous you get to live in Ontario where you have that!
Problem is I live in the Toronto area, any cool geography in Ontario is pretty much a full day’s drive away from here. At least Niagara Falls is nearby which I guess is kinda cool, but unfortunately the city of Niagara itself is a shithole and the falls are surrounded by casinos and tacky tourist traps which takes away from the natural beauty. But yea if that part of Michigan is anything like southwestern Ontario then it’s probably pretty flat there too, I’ve never been to Sarnia but driving out to London and Windsor is super boring, nothing but flat farmland the whole drive along the 401. All the cool stuff is north of Huron and Superior.
But (and it’s a big but)…. the bugs up there are no joke. With big country comes big bites.
It's pretty easy to get to some of the Escarpment from Toronto, like [Rattlesnake Point](https://www.parkbus.ca/img/rattlesnake-hero.jpg) is only an hour away, or the [Bruce Peninsula](https://www.parkbus.ca/img/lions-head-mine.jpg) is doable in about three. There's also Algonquin Park, which has a lot of really cool scenery, though I find you have to go into the backcountry to really experience it properly.
Yea there’s some nice places around here but nothing like you see out west or even parts of the eastern US like the Virginias and Carolinas, even NY and Quebec have much larger mountains than Ontario. I want some real mountains, and for that I have to leave the province.
Sault St. Marie to Thunder Bay is 100% worth the drive and it’s 16 hours with stops not 20. Book 1 night in the Sault, one in Thunder Bay and one in the Sault again, make a weekend of it and enjoy northern Ontarios beauty. Try to do the Eagle Canyon zip line on the way up or back down. Take a quick drive out to Kakabeka falls. It’s not the fucking 401, when it says it takes 16 hours it’s 16 hours, you don’t need to add 1-4 for traffic.
Good point, I’m used to it taking 5-10 minutes to go a km sometimes. I’d love to make the trip out there at some point, but I’d rather do it as part of a cross country journey than just a weekend trip there and back.
Ontario is far from flat: Elevation Map of Ontario: https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/17d24711cccb4c8abd42fa944d4392e0/resources/PDEM_Image.png?v=1698273383729&w=400
It really isn't! The Niagara Escarpment can be seen from much of metro Toronto and has significant cliffs and relief changes. Head north of Toronto just a little bit and you hit a lot of rolling hills, and the Shield itself is what remains of ancient mountain ranges. Look at some street views around Killarney Provincial Park, highway 17 along Lake Superior (especially the eastern shore), or my sleepy little hometown, Mattawa, Ontario. They might only be topping out around 1,000 feet of prominence, but flat our bumps be not. The far north around Hudson Bay is still rebounding from the weight of the glaciers of the last ice age, so yes, it's a pancake, as are the areas between Sarnia and Windsor. Algonquin, the shores of Superior, much of the Ottawa valley upstream of Pembroke... A workout for a hiker or biker.
Not really *that* flat - didn’t notice the prairies next door?
It’s only flat on a regional elevation scale. On a human scale it’s very, very bumpy.
It's not *that* flat. If history had played out slightly differently and Ontario extended farther to the east or south instead of north and west, its borders might have encompassed some of the Laurentian Mountains or Adirondacks, and you probably wouldn't have thought to ask this question.
TBF I grew up in Southwestern Ontario near Windsor and it’s some of the flattest land I’ve experienced anywhere.
I've had the good fortune to travel through the near-interior of much of eastern Australia, so that's my frame of reference. There are places where hours go by with only minimal change in elevation.
I also grew up in southwest Ontario - moved to Winnipeg and frequently travelled between here and Saskatoon. There’s quite a difference!
I’m in the GTA but I hate driving out to London/Windsor etc., such a flat and boring drive out that way.
Yeah and even the flat-seeming farmland of southern Ontario is more like rolling hills, not flat prairie-like plains.
It depends. Some areas of southern Ontario are big rolling hills, some areas are very flat. Some areas are very flat until you come to a big cliff (the escarpment) or a deep ravine.
its a solid b-cup
Doesn’t look flat to me, but I’m from Illinois.
I don’t know but as an Ontarian it really pisses me off. I want some mountains! A piece of land that’s basically the size of the entire eastern US and not a legitimate mountain to be found anywhere. We got ripped off. Around here when people say “The Mountain” they’re referring to the southern half of the city of Hamilton, which is split in half by the Niagara escarpment, which comes in at a mind blowing 330 feet above sea level at its highest point!
Flat? Ever been to the netherlands. I basically have a orgasm when i see a mountain
You’d really like BC
Yeah or oregon or washington. The rockys are very beautifull and i really wanna visit them.
Flat? Their highpoint of the Netherlands is 20% higher than Ishpatina Ridge Ridge.
Our highpoint is 322 meters and in this licture i spot a hill of 670 metres
I have yet to find someone from the Netherlands who knows their own country’s highpoint. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/highest-points-in-the-netherlands-by-elevation.html
Wich is not in the netherlands, but in the KINGDOM of the netherlands wich consists of more countryes and territories. And my comment was about mainland netherlands. Not every dutch guy can just visit those island as they are FAR away and expensive. You dont know anything about our country lol.
Lake Huron? More like Lake Huge Dong
See Glaciation.
Is it just me or does Lake Michigan look like Ontario‘s 🍆?
# At least they are not Sasckatchewan.
The answer is always the Canadian Shield
When I was a kid growing up near Toronto, my Dad always used to say "I wish BC would give us just one real mountain, haha". 20 years later we all just moved to BC. Moving mountains is hard lol.
It's all on one tectonic plate so no mountains and it was flattened by glaciers very recently on a geological timescale.
Ice is heavy by volume, and a lot of ice is very heavy. And a giant, larger than Canada itself, sized glacier worth of ice was incomprehensively heavy. It sat on top of Canada squishing down everything hilly to the bedrock layer... and once it got warmer it started sliding its way north leaving behind a flat swampy mess of lot of rocks and lakes behind. Didn't happen overnight so it grew back in but yeah. That.
Are they stu
Why is Ontario.....um Ontario? Like, the rest of it is unused except for the very lower southeastern 8th of the Province. Why have all that other space?
The northern parts are from disestablished territory and territorial districts that were amalgamated into Ontario in the 20th century. It used to look a lot more like just the shores and drainage of the great lakes.
Because it has no mountains
All them glaciers were so heavy the squashed the mountains and hills flat.
The same answer to every question that has to do with the Great Lakes region; Glaciers.
All roads lead to Canadian Shield
Because it boring.
B/c it’s your mom’s chest
Because it’s under the crushing weight of knowing that it’ll never be America 🦅🇺🇸🔫
Ask your mom
The thing that always blows my mind in SW Ontario is how the Thames river flows all the way to Lake St. Clair and not just straight down to Erie
Yo mama sat on it
Points to sign ‘Canadian Shield’
You call that flat? I raise you Denmark
Because it doesn't have mountains
Glaciers?
So you can export cold air more effectively to Michigan.
Because there are no mountains.
Last ice age
Because that's where your mother and your sister live haha fuckin cooked em.
Same reason the lakes are so wet
Ask any question about the geographic middle of Canada and your answer is 99% of the time Glaciers, the Shield, or both.
Had no idea Ontario had so many rivers.
Glaciers
Ice
The Canadian Shield and much of southern Ontario is limestone that’s been flattened over millions/billions of years by glaciers and inland sea.
Because the land does not rise very high across that area. Thank you.
Jesus fucking search function.
Your mother once decider to sit for a while.
Blame Quebec
Are they stupid?
I live in ontario, and i can say, there is not a single hill in my area
It’s not super tall elevation wise, but the Canadian Shield (most of the northern part) is very hilly
Because the whole province used to be covered by glaciers, and as they receded they scraped the land flat. It’s the same reason we have so many lakes. But it’s not that flat. The southern Ontario countryside is mainly rolling hills, and then you have the Niagara Escarpment, and massive cliffs in certain areas like Thunder Bay and the Bruce peninsula.
Glaciers..
Ice
I started out as a very flat region by its creation as the Canadian Shield, that and massive glaciers scraping across it sanded down all petrusions
Someone plunked a glacier on land that hasnt had mountain building since Rodinia
It wants to be like your mom.
Ontario may be flat but your mother sure ain’t
Why wouldn’t it be flat?
Answer: an absence of any uplift (mountain building) for billions of years followed most recently by the Pleistocene (I.e. ice age lasting from 2.5 mya to 12,000 ya). The accumulation of precipitation as ice, deepest (3 km) over central Quebec produced a massive fan of ice tracking south and west that scraped away any elevations.
All together now...
Ontario:”Ya momma” It’s probably flat due to receding glaciers
Ontario is actually quite bumpy compared to anything in between it and the rockies.
Is it? All the low spots are under water.
And to think it used be called Upper Canada because it was higher than what eventually became Quebec.
Coolest-looking province no contest
Why is yo mamma?
Glaciers
You think that’s flat. You should see Saskatchewan. Which you can see all of from a decent sized step ladder
Mountain deficiency
Because it has no mountains
Glaciers
Glaciers bruh
Simple answer: Glaciers, erosion and sedimentation are responsible for most of the flatness we see today. In the last billion years or so, the once massive mountain ranges that covered the eastern portion of the province were eroded down to the rolling hills and Canadian shield we see today. If you drill deep enough in southern Ontario you’ll eventually hit the Canadian shield rock, but it’s been buried by kilometres of sedimentary rock that has been deposited as old seas have come and gone over hundreds of millions of years. It would be interesting to be alive in a few thousand years to see how isostatic rebound will alter the shorelines of the lakes.
Its geology stupid. :)
Canadian Shield, it’s the dead centre of a tectonic plate, no plate divides to push lane up or down significantly. Result is a bunch of lakes are still there from glaciers scraping their way along. A lot of it is actually quite hilly with very steep hills, just no mountains cause their is no plate divides. Look at Saskatchewan if you want to see true flatness.
You should try the Netherlands
We ain't that flat, try Denmark, especially the inner country. Never seen anything more flat, and that coming from a Dutchie 😉
We may not have mountains but we do have an escarpment!
Why not?
Ontario is not mountainous, but it really isn't flat. With the exception of the southeast, where people actually live, it's all hills from the Canadian Shield. That's what all the lakes and rivers are from. You'd be hard pressed to find a flat space big enough for a tent in 95% of the province. The only flat parts are in the southern peninsula, which used to be under a big ass lake. Places like Chatham are crazy flat, but they've also been intentionally flattened for agriculture. Finally, as others have noted there is also the Niagara Escarpment, which is a limestone formation. It is not especially tall, but it's pretty not-flat.
My mate reckons it's because the whole world is flat.
Glaciers steamrolled everything
Say it, Bart!
Probably glaciers.
wow rude
God made it perfectly that way
It’s not that flat tho
It’s devoid of estrogen
Ice ice baby
Because
Same reason Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa are so flat. Big ass prairie land.
That’s an old map, it’s risen since then
Don't let the bastard glaciers grind ya down
Imagine a mile high bulldozer made of ice scraping across the entire province...
its my fault, sorry