The prairies are one of the world's most important farming areas with wheat being grown in the south and beef cattle being raised in Alberta being two of the most important commodities.
The southern section of the prairies is extremely arid. One section known as Palliser's Triangle is so arid that farming has never been successful there without government help. The zones around the cities of Regina and Calgary are also rather dry. In an average year, southern Saskatchewan receives between 300 mm (12 in) and 510 mm (20 in) of precipitation, with the majority falling between April and June. Frost from October to March limits the growing season.
The eastern section of the prairies, in Manitoba, is well watered with several large lakes, most notable Lake Winnipeg and also some large rivers. The area also gets reasonable amounts of precipitation. The middle sections of Alberta and Saskatchewan are also wetter than the south and are better farmland, despite having a shorter growing season. The areas around Edmonton and Saskatoon are especially notable for good land.
Further north the area becomes too cold for much agriculture and becomes dominated by large forests.
The Canadian prairies is a large area of flat sedimentary land stretching throughout western Canada between the Canadian Shield in the east and the Canadian Rockies.
Mixed prairie is more common and is part of the dry interior plains that extend from Canada south to the US state of Texas.
Fescue prairie occurs in the moister regions, occupying the northern extent of the prairies in central and southwestern Alberta and west central Saskatchewan (see map).
The pioneer and doyen of prairie bibliographers is Mr Bruce B. Peel, whoseA Bibliography of the PrairieProvinces to 1953 (Toronto, 1956; 2nd ed.
The prairies best-known and most celebrated bookman is without a doubt Edmonton’s Mel Hurtig, who opened his now legendary bookstore in 1956, entered the publishing field in a modest way in 1967, and by 1972 had created Canada’s only trade publishing house with a national scope to be located outside of the Toronto-Montreal axis.
The prairies have long produced a disproportionate share of Canada s writers and authors, who, even when they did not join in the outbound diaspora, were long content to see their works published in the east or, better still, in London and/or New York City.
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