Georgian Bay Islands

Declared in 1929, it protects the southern edge of the Canadian Shield, a vast Precambrian rock formation that makes up the oldest geological core of North America, with ages passing 3,000 million years in places, among the oldest exposed rock documented at the planet's surface. The Georgian Bay landscape of wind-bent pines on bare rock directly inspired the aesthetic of the celebrated Group of Seven, a collective of Canadian landscape painters of the early 20th century.