Ideally, those forces are in balance, but with change, the only constant, adjustments become inevitable. The forces existing when they created Canada are out of balance because it is geographically not the same country if nothing else. The basic principle I taught students of geopolitics is that geography is the stage on which history is played out. You can study history or geography separately, but they only work effectively when studied together ? TN Editor [/su_note]  ? TN Editor [/su_note] 

The map shows the natural north/south orientation of the continent depicted by the four finer arrows pointing south. From left to right they indicate the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, the Great Lakes Basin, and the Appalachian Mountains. The two arrows pointing north indicate the great drainage basins of the Mackenzie in the west and the Churchill- Nelson systems that flow north to the Arctic.