The Taiga Plain Ecozone, as defined by the

Commission for Environmental Cooperation The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC; ; ) is an intergovernmental organization established by Canada, Mexico, and the United States to implement the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), the environmental si ...

(CEC), is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone that covers most of the western

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

, extending to northwest

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, northeast

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

and slightly overlapping northeastern

Yukon Yukon () is a Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada’s we ...

. 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 Great Slave is a territorial electoral district for the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is one of seven districts that represent Yellowknife. The district has existed twice, the first incarnation (under the distri ...

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 A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...

and other

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

with numerous

wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

habitats. Portions of Wood Buffalo National Park and Whooping Crane Summer Range, the only nesting area for the critically endangered

whooping crane The whooping crane (''Grus americana'') is an endangered Crane (bird), crane species, native to North America, named for its "whooping" calls. Along with the sandhill crane (''Antigone canadensis''), it is one of only two crane species native to ...

, overlap onto the Taiga Plains from the Boreal Plains. To the west it abuts the foothills of the

Boreal Cordillera The Boreal Cordillera Ecozone, as defined by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), is a Canadian terrestrial Ecozones of Canada, ecozone occupying most of the northern third of British Columbia and southern half of Yukon. Within it ...

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 In geology and related fields, a stratum (: strata) is a layer of Rock (geology), rock or sediment characterized by certain Lithology, lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by v ...

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

, and

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock formed by the cementation (geology), cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or de ...

s, 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

Climate

Summers are cool and short in this sub-arctic climate, with mean temperatures ranging from 7 °C in the north to 14 °C in the south. Winters are long and very cold in the Mackenzie Delta, with a typical January mean of -26 °C, but are somewhat milder in the southern extent, with a mean January temperature of -15 °C. Little

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwe ...

falls here, an annual average of 250 to 500 mm throughout the zone. Snow and ice cover lasts at least six months, and it is not unusual for it to persist for eight months.

Conservation

A number of

protected area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewood ...

s have been established to protect representative and/or significant portions of this ecozone. These include the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary, Nahanni National Park Reserve, and Wood Buffalo National Park.

References

{{Reflist Ecozones of Canada Ecozones and ecoregions of Alberta Ecozones and ecoregions of British Columbia Ecozones and ecoregions of the Northwest Territories Ecozones and ecoregions of Yukon