2 
NATURAL RESOURCES OF QUEBEC 
Saguenay westward extends a narrow strip of fertile and well-settled 
agricultural territory. The valley of the Ottawa is also a productive 
agricultural area. To the north of this strip, bordering the northern 
shores of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers, lies the. extensive and 
picturesque Laurentian plateau, with its forest-clad mountains and its 
clear sparkling lakes and rivers. 
THE BEAUTIFUL LAURENTIAN PLATEAU— 
*““The striking features of the Laurentian Plateau are innumerable 
lakes, large and small, with intervening rounded rocky elevations, wooded, 
in their natural conditions to the south, rising above the tree line to the 
northward, while in the far north, on both sides of Hudson Bay, hills and 
valleys become eventually characterized by grasses, mosses and lichens 
alone, constituting the great ‘‘barren lands” of North America. The 
rivers and lakes are everywhere well stocked with fish, while deer and moose 
in the southern parts, and to the north the caribou, abound wherever the 
Indian hunters have not followed them too closely. Thus, where the 
region can be entered without undue difficulty, it has already become a 
much favoured resort of the sportsman. 
“Although it is appropriate to describe this region as a plateau or 
table-land, such terms, it must be understood, are applicable only in a 
very general way. Its average elevation of about 1,500 feet is notably 
greater than that of the adjacent lands, and is maintained with consider- 
able regularity, but its surface is nearly everywhere hummocky or undu- 
lating. Away from its borders, the streams draining it are, as a rule, 
extremely irregular and tortuous, flowing from lake to lake in almost 
every direction; but assuming more direct and rapid courses in deeply 
cut valleys as they eventually leave it. 
“It contributes little to the fertile areas of the country in proportion 
to its size . . . In its southern parts, ‘it carries forests of great value, 
and its mineral resources are already known in some places to be very 
important. = It constitutes moreover a gathering ground for many large 
and almost innumerable small rivers and streams, which, in the sources 
of power they offer in their descent to the lower adjacent levels, are likely 
to prove in the near future of greater and more permanent value to the 
industries of the country than an extensive coal field. Particularly notable 
from this point of view is the long series of available water-powers which 
runs from the strait of Belle Isle nearly to the head of lake Superior. coin- 
cident with the southern border of the plateau.” 
x George M. Dawson. C.M.G.. F.R.S.. in The Physical Geography and Geology of Canada.