Taiga Plains Ecozone (CEC)

It is the site of the Peace-Athabasca Delta, a globally significant wetland in Wood Buffalo National Park, and Nahanni National Park Reserve.

Geography

Its eastern boundary is located by Great Bear and Great Slave lakes in the Taiga Shield, site of the world's oldest known rock formations. To its south are the Boreal Plains, a vast forest of spruce and other timber with numerous wetland habitats. Portions of Wood Buffalo National Park and Whooping Crane Summer Range, the only nesting area for the critically endangered whooping crane, overlap onto the Taiga Plains from the Boreal Plains. To the west it abuts the foothills of the Boreal Cordillera in British Columbia and southern Yukon, and the Taiga Cordillera further north. These two ecozones comprise the Mackenzie Mountains. Its northern borders are with the Southern Arctic ecozone in northeastern Northwest Territories, and the Arctic Archipelago Marine ecozone at the delta of Canada's largest river, the Mackenzie.

The ecozone consists primarily of strata of limestone, shale, and sandstone sedimentary rocks, and has formed wide flat plains with rolling terrain throughout. The sedimentary layers contain some "rich natural reservoirs of oil and gas". The western portion, dominated by the Mackenzie, is more rugged with deep canyons and trenches cut by the river and tributaries.

Ecoprovinces

This ecozone can be further subdivided into three ecoprovinces:

• Great Bear Lowlands
• Hay-Slave Lowlands
• Mackenzie Foothills