Application of the principles of elastic plate bending to subsurface geometric information and outcrop in northwestern Canada suggests that Proterozoic crust was loaded and deflected during orogenic activity between about 1.6 and 1.1 Ga. Exposed Hudsonian (ca. 1.8--2.0 Ga) basement separating younger but coeval stratigraphic sequences in the Coppermine Homocline on the west and Bathurst Inlet on the east can be explained as a forebulge associated with the loading. ¿American Geophysical Union 1991