Ontario,+Canada

=**2014 Bookmark Project**=

In 2014, we're exchanging bookmarks with St. Kateri Tekakwitha School in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. The school is part of the Waterloo Catholic District School Board.

Introducing Canada
Canada is a democracy. Like Australia, it is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and its head of state is Queen Elizabeth II. Also like Australia, it is a multicultural nation and people have come to live there from all over the world. There is also a part of Canada called Quebec where the people mostly speak French.

Indigenous people have lived in Canada from 24,500 BC onward so they are called First Nations. (They are also sometimes called aboriginal peoples, but not with a capital A like Australian Aborigines.) More than a million people (about 4%) are First Nations people and just like in Australia, there are many, many groups all with their own languages and cultures.

Population of Canada
In 2012, Canada's population was more than 35 million (compared to Australia, which has a population of 23 million). About 13 million people live in Ontario, most of them in the cities.

Canada's geography
Canada is the second-largest country in the world by total area, and the fourth largest by land area. It is bordered by
 * the Atlantic Ocean to the east
 * the Pacific Ocean to the east
 * the Arctic Ocean to the north
 * and the USA to the south.

The capital of Canada is Ottowa. There are ten provinces and three territories.

Kitchener is is a city about 100 km west of Toronto, which is the capital of the province of Ontario.

Religion
The most common religion is Christian, (about 60%) mostly Roman Catholics, but about 23% have no religion at all.

Canada's economy
Canada is a wealthy country which makes money by manufacturing and trading goods with other countries, especially the USA. In Southern Ontario they farm cattle and dairy, and also crops such as small grains, fruit, vegetables and tobacco.

In Ontario, they generate energy using nuclear power, hydro-electricity (electricity made with water-powered turbines) and only 10% fossil fuels. The famous Niagara Falls is in Ontario and it helps to generate hydroelectricity for the area. However they are now starting to invest in renewable forms of clean energy production.

There are many factories are in Ontario, where they make motor vehicles, including Chryslers, Fords, Toyotas and Hondas. They also make iron and steel, and machinery, as well as processed food, appliances, chemicals and paper.

Many people also work in IT, and they invented the Blackberry smartphone in the Waterloo area. Banking and finance is also a major employer in this area.

Tourism is also very important, especially in Summer when people enjoy freshwater recreation and sports, and hiking in the beautiful wilderness areas. Tourists like to go hunting, ski-ing, and snowmobiling in the Winter.

Climate and weather
The climate in Canada varies from place to place, getting colder towards the Arctic areas. It gets very cold in Winter in Ontario, much colder than any state of Australia, even Tasmania. Winter lasts from mid-December until mid-March, but the average temperature in Waterloo was still pretty cold in October-November!


 * October 8.2 degrees C
 * November 2.5 degrees C
 * December -3.3 degrees C
 * January -6.5 degrees C
 * February -5.5 degrees C
 * March -1 degrees C

When they get snow the children make snowmen!

It warms up a bit in summer but still the average only gets up to about 20 degrees C in July! Their record high is only 36.5 degrees C, not as high as Melbourne's record high of 46.4 degrees C in 2009!

[[image:School building.jpg width="531" height="398" align="left"]]
The school is named after St Kateri, who was the first Native American to be canonised as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. Kateri is pronounced Gad-air-ree and Tekakwitha is pronounced Day-ga-weet-ah.

Kateri was born near Auriesville, New York in 1656. Her father was a Mohawk warrior, but her mother died of smallpox when Kateri was only four years old, so she was brought up by relations. When she was twenty she became a Catholic and went to a new colony of Indians in Canada. She was very religious and her life was dedicated to prayer and to helping the sick and aged. She died when she was only twenty-four in 1680. People were devoted to her memory and because of her many Native American Catholic ministries were started. She was made a saint in 2012, and is the patron of environment and ecology.

The school has 450 students, boys and girls, in Junior Kindergarten to Grade 8 (ages 4-13). They have intramural sports as well as school competitive teams like baseball, soccer, volleyball and basketball and so on. They even have a Frisbee team! They also have clubs, folk dance and an environmental club.

This is part of their playground, and you can see tall city buildings in the background. You can see that there is a large concrete area so that they can clear the snow in winter time.

They have a school library just like we do at Mossgiel Park, and their librarian's name is Ms Colette Schneider.

Sources:
All photos of St Kateri school are sourced from their [|Twitter feed] All other images are from Wikipedia Commons.

Information about Canada was sourced from Wikipedia: __ [] __ __ [] __; __ [] __

Information about Melbourne's climate was sourced from __ [|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne#Climate] __

Information about St Kateri was sourced from []