Boreal beauty

A back-and-forth rivalry may linger between Quebec and its Old World cousin France, but if size is the game, there's no contest. Wild and woody Quebec is about three times the area of Metropolitan France—or to put it in American terms, triple the size of Texas. Within its nearly 600,000 square miles, you'll find more than half a million lakes and thousands of rivers, accounting for 3% of Earth's fresh water. When not caked in snow, most of the province's upper reaches resemble this scene, being part of Canada's vast, evergreen boreal forest.