Boreal forest of Canada
Encyclopedia
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
's boreal forest comprises about one third of the circumpolar boreal forest that rings the northern hemisphere
Northern Hemisphere
The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of its equator—the word hemisphere literally means “half sphere”. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...
, mostly north of the 50th parallel
50th parallel north
The 50th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 50 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean....
. Other countries with boreal forest include Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, which contains the majority, and the Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n and Nordic countries
Nordic countries
The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic which consists of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland...
(e.g. Sweden, Finland, and Norway). The boreal region in Canada covers almost 60% of the country’s land area. The Canadian boreal region spans the landscape from the most easterly part of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
to the border between the far northern Yukon
Yukon
Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....
and Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. The boreal region is often characterized as the collection of the eight Canadian boreal eco-zones. While the biodiversity of regions varies, each eco-zone is rich in native flora and fauna.
The Canadian boreal region represents a tract of land over 1,000 kilometres wide separating the tundra
Tundra
In physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sami word tūndâr "uplands," "treeless mountain tract." There are three types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine...
in the north and temperate rainforest and deciduous woodlands
Temperate deciduous forest
A temperate deciduous forest, more precisely termed temperate broadleaf forest or temperate broadleaved forest, is a biome found in North America, southern South America, Europe, and Asia. A temperate deciduous forest consists of trees that lose their leaves every year...
that predominate in the most southerly and westerly parts of Canada. The boreal region contains about 14% of Canada’s population. With its sheer vastness and integrity, the boreal makes an important contribution to the rural and aboriginal economies of Canada, primarily through resource industries, recreation, hunting, fishing and eco-tourism. Hundreds of cities and towns within its territory derive at least 20% of their economic activity from the forest, mainly from industries like forest products, mining, oil and gas and tourism. The boreal forest also plays an iconic role in Canada’s history, economic and social development and the arts.
Post Ice-age
The Canadian boreal forest in its current form began to emerge with the end of the last Ice Age. With the retreat of the Wisconsin Ice Sheet 10,000 years ago, spruce and northern pine migrated northward and were followed thousands of years later by fir and birch, so that the species character changed as the temperature warmed further. About 5000 years ago, the Canadian boreal began to resemble what it is today in terms of species composition and biodiversity. White spruce, black spruce and tamarack are most prevalent in the four northern eco-zones of the Taiga and Hudson Plains, while spruce, balsam fir, jack pine, white birch and trembling Aspen are most common in the lower boreal regions. Large populations of trembling aspen and willow are found in the southernmost parts of the Boreal Plains. One dominant characteristic of the boreal is that much of it consists of large, even-aged stands, a uniformity that owes to a cycle of natural disturbances like forest fires, infestations of pine beetle or spruce budworm that kill large tracts of forest with cyclical regularity. Since the melting of the great pizza, the boreal forest has been through many cycles of natural death through fire, infestations and disease, followed by regeneration. Prior to European colonization of Canada and the application of modern firefighting equipment and techniques, the natural burn/regeneration cycle was less than 75 to 100 years, and it still is in many areas. Terms like old growth and ancient forest have a different connotation in the boreal context than they do when used to describe mature or over-mature stands in coastal rain forests with longer-lived species and different natural disturbance cycles.Eco-zones
Canada's boreal region can be divided into two main sections. The northern reaches of the boreal forest consists of four eco-zones – Taiga Cordillera, Taiga Plains, Taiga Shield and Hudson Plains – that are the most thinly treed areas where the growing season and average tree size progressively shrinks until the edge of the Arctic tundra is reached. The southern tier of the boreal meanwhile consists of three other ecozones that form the largely uninterrupted or continuous forest in stretching as far south as Lake Superior in Ontario (as the Central Canadian Shield forestsCentral Canadian Shield forests
The Central Canadian Shield forests are a taiga ecoregion of Canada.-Setting:This ecoregion consists of rolling hills, lakes, bogs and rocky outcrops covering a large curved swathe on the Canadian Shield from eastern Manitoba and Northern Ontario running southeastwards through Thunder Bay District...
ecoregion) and the Manitoba-North Dakota border. These three southern zones are the Boreal Shield, at 1,630,000 square kilometres the largest of the eight zones, the Boreal Plains and Boreal Cordillera. A typical ecoregion of this southern tier would be the Eastern Canadian Shield taiga
Eastern Canadian Shield taiga
The Eastern Canadian Shield taiga is an ecoregion of Canada as defined by the World Wildlife Fund categorization system.-Setting:Located in northeastern Canada, this ecoregion covers a large part of northern Quebec and most of Labrador, reaching from Hudson Bay and James Bay in the west, across to...
that covers northern Quebec and most of Labrador. Finally the eighth zone is the balsam fir Abies balsamea forest that covers the higher elevations of the Laurentian Mountains
Laurentian mountains
The Laurentian Mountains are a mountain range in southern Quebec, Canada, north of the St. Lawrence River and Ottawa River, rising to a highest point of 1166 metres at Mont Raoul Blanchard, north east of Quebec City in the Reserve Faunique des Laurentides. The Gatineau, L'Assomption, Lièvre,...
and the northern Appalachian Mountains
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
in eastern Quebec (especially the Gaspé Peninsula
Gaspé Peninsula
The Gaspésie , or Gaspé Peninsula or the Gaspé, is a peninsula along the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada, extending into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence...
), on the island of Newfoundland, in the highlands of New Brunswick, and the Cape Breton Highlands on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Within the boreal region, there are about 1,890,000 square kilometres that are between 80% to 100% forested and another 650,000 square kilometres with 60% to 80% forest cover.
Native species
Some trees native to the Canadian boreal include: Black SpruceBlack Spruce
Picea mariana is a species of spruce native to northern North America, from Newfoundland west to Alaska, and south to northern New York, Minnesota and central British Columbia...
, White Spruce
White Spruce
Picea glauca is a species of spruce native to boreal forests in the north of North America, from central Alaska east to Newfoundland, and south to northern Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine; there is also an isolated population in the...
, Balsam Fir
Balsam Fir
The balsam fir is a North American fir, native to most of eastern and central Canada and the northeastern United States .-Growth:It is a small to medium-size evergreen tree typically tall, rarely to tall, with a narrow conic crown...
, Larch
Larch
Larches are conifers in the genus Larix, in the family Pinaceae. Growing from 15 to 50m tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains further south...
(Tamarack), Lodgepole Pine
Lodgepole Pine
Lodgepole Pine, Pinus contorta, also known as Shore Pine, is a common tree in western North America. Like all pines, it is evergreen.-Subspecies:...
, Jack Pine
Jack Pine
Jack pine is a North American pine with its native range in Canada east of the Rocky Mountains from Northwest Territories to Nova Scotia, and the northeast of the United States from Minnesota to Maine, with the southernmost part of the range just into northwest Indiana...
, Trembling
Populus tremuloides
Populus tremuloides is a deciduous tree native to cooler areas of North America, commonly called quaking aspen, trembling aspen, American aspen, and Quakies,. The trees have tall trunks, up to 25 metres, with smooth pale bark, scarred with black. The glossy green leaves, dull beneath, become golden...
and Large-Toothed Aspen
Aspen
Populus section Populus, of the Populus genus, includes the aspen trees and the white poplar Populus alba. The five typical aspens are all native to cold regions with cool summers, in the north of the Northern Hemisphere, extending south at high altitudes in the mountains. The White Poplar, by...
, Cottonwood and White Birch, and Balsam Poplar
Balsam poplar
The balsam poplars — also known as Populus sect. Tacamahaca — are a group of about 10 species of poplars, indigenous to North America and eastern Asia, distinguished by the balsam scent of their buds, the whitish undersides of their leaves, and the leaf petiole being round in cross-section...
. Black Spruce stands are among the lowest in biological productivity, likely due to their ability to thrive on low nutrient soils.
Inland water and wetlands
Canada’s boreal landscape contains more lakes and rivers than any comparably sized landmass on earth. It has been estimated that the boreal region contains over 1.5 million lakes with a minimum surface area of 40,000 square metres as well as some of Canada’s largest lakes. Soft water lakes predominate in central and eastern Canada and hard water lakes predominate in Western Canada. Most large boreal lakes have cold water species of fish like trout and whitefish, while in warmer waters, species may include northern pike, walleye and smallmouth bass.Species at risk
Few species of boreal wildlife are classified under government conservation regimes as being at risk of extinction. However, the decline of some major species of wildlife is a concern and is spurring multilateral stakeholder initiatives to understand the causes of a population decline and identify potential actions to stabilize the species concerned.Woodland caribou, present in several provinces, are threatened by hunting, wolf predation, as well as habitat disturbance from forestry activities, roads, mining and exploration, pipelines and oil and gas production. The Newfoundland population of marten is threatened by habitat loss, accidental trapping and prey availability.
Deforestation
In contemporary times, the boreal forest has suffered little deforestation, defined as the permanent conversion of forest area to non-forest due to activities associated with agriculture, urban or recreational development, oil and gas development, and flooding for hydroelectric projects. In Alberta, the province with the largest oil and gas industry, more trees are cut for agriculture or oil and gas exploration than for timber. In eastern Canada, over 9,000 square kilometres of peatlands and forest have been flooded over the past four decades for hydroelectric projects. Even so, the statistics don’t measure afforestation and such deforestation as is occurring is a fraction of the boreal’s 3,100,000 square kilometres[contradicts earlier citation stating boreal forest covers 60% of Canada's land]. Canada as a whole has 91% of the forest cover that existed at the dawn of European settlement. More deforestation has occurred outside the boreal region, in more southerly areas of the country. The forest sector annually harvests approximately ½ of 1% of the region. However, this is not considered deforestation by some, given that provincial laws are meant to ensure that areas harvested by the forest sector are replanted or regenerated naturally.Wildlife and land habitat
There may be as many as five billion landbirds, including resident and migratory species. The Canadian boreal region contains the largest area of wetlands of any ecosystem of the world, serving as breeding ground for over 12 million water fowl and millions of land birds, the latter including species as diverse as vultures, hawks, grouse, doves, cuckoos, owls, nighthawkNighthawk
A nighthawk is a nocturnal bird of the subfamily Chordeilinae, within the nightjar family, Caprimulgidae. Nighthawks are medium-sized New World birds, with long wings, short legs, and very short bills. They usually nest on the ground. They feed on flying insects. The Least Nighthawk, at and ,...
s, swifts, hummingbird
Hummingbird
Hummingbirds are birds that comprise the family Trochilidae. They are among the smallest of birds, most species measuring in the 7.5–13 cm range. Indeed, the smallest extant bird species is a hummingbird, the 5-cm Bee Hummingbird. They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings...
s, kingfisher
Kingfisher
Kingfishers are a group of small to medium sized brightly coloured birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species being found in the Old World and Australia...
s, woodpecker
Woodpecker
Woodpeckers are near passerine birds of the order Piciformes. They are one subfamily in the family Picidae, which also includes the piculets and wrynecks. They are found worldwide and include about 180 species....
s and passerine
Passerine
A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...
s (or perching birds, often referred to as songbirds). It is estimated that the avian population of the boreal represents 60% of the landbirds in all of Canada and almost 30% of all landbirds in the United States and Canada combined.
Natural regeneration
Since the emergence of the boreal forest after the Ice Age, a natural arboreal life cycle has emerged, whereby natural clearing mechanisms – fire, insects, disease and extreme winds – would kill off large tracts of trees and spark the necessary rebirth. New trees would grow in place of the burnt ones. Species like lodgepole and jack pine have resin sealed cones. In a fire, the resin melts and the pods open, allowing their seeds to scatter so that a new pine forest will grow within two decades. It has been estimated that prior to western colonization, this renewal process occurred on average every 75 to 100 years and created even aged stands interspaced with natural fire breaks. Fire continues to cause the greatest amount of forest disturbance because of the predominance of coniferous trees whose needles are more readily combustible than the leaves and bark of deciduous trees.Fire loss
Despite today’s sophisticated fire-spotting and fire-fighting techniques, forest fires in Canada still burn, on average, about 28,000 square kilometres of boreal and other forest area annually. That average annual burn area is equivalent to more than three times the current annual industrial timber harvest. It can be many more times that in bad fire years. Different parts of the boreal have different burn cycles. The drier western region, which receives lower average rainfall, is more susceptible to fire and more area is burned annually on average in the west than in central and eastern Canada.Land ownership
Forest land in Canada is largely Crown land. Over 90% of the boreal forest is provincial Crown land; another 5% is federally controlled and includes national parks, First Nations reserves and national defence installations.Industrial activity
About 1,400 communities within the Boreal region rely on resource industries for at least part of the livelihood and stability. Many of these communities were carved out of the forest to support a sawmill, pulp and paper mill, mine or railway maintenance facility. Boreal forestry activities support almost 400,000 direct and indirect jobs across Canada. Forestry, pulp and paper, mining, and oil and gas exploration and development are the largest industries along with tourism, trapping, recreation, light manufacturing and the services to support industry and communities. The forest products sector is one of Canada’s largest export industries, representing approximately 3% of GDP, with about half of the annual wood harvest coming from the boreal forest.Roughly one quarter of the boreal forest is managed for industrial forestry. The remaining three-quarters is either in parks, conservation areas, model forests or is considered non-timber-productive, generally defined as unsuitable for managed forestry or inaccessible. As recently as 2003, it was estimated that the annual harvest in the boreal was about 7,500 square kilometres per year, equivalent to about 0.2% of the total Canadian boreal forest. The sharp downturn in the market for lumber because of the collapse of the housing market in the United States that began in 2006, coupled with import tariff and tax barriers, have knocked the bottom out of Canada’s forest industry. In Ontario, Canada’s largest province, where most forestry activity is in the boreal, government statistics suggest that the harvest declined 18% from 2005 to 2006. Given the high number of mill closings from 2005 onward, mostly in Ontario and Quebec, it is a trend that most likely persisted through 2007 and 2008. Most of Canada’s conventional onshore oil and gas production, including the rapidly expanding oil sands production in Alberta, is located in the boreal region as is Canada’s largest uranium producing zone in northern Saskatchewan and Quebec’s largest hydroelectric generating facilities in the La Grande watershed.
Aboriginal participation
About 80% of Canada’s aboriginal population lives in forested areas – including one million in over 500 First Nations and Métis communities in boreal zones. Of that amount, over 17,000 work in the forest products industry, mostly in silvicultureSilviculture
Silviculture is the practice of controlling the establishment, growth, composition, health, and quality of forests to meet diverse needs and values. The name comes from the Latin silvi- + culture...
and woodlands operations in the boreal and other forest regions.
Sustainable development
Since the early 1990s, a strong impetus has been created to focus on conserving Canada’s boreal legacy and sustainably managing economic activity within the entire region. The Canadian boreal is largely intact and available for multiple uses like timber harvest, recreation and hunting. Forestry companies have come to adopt the management practices known as eco-system based management, which takes into consideration criteria and indicators for sustainability – social, economic and environmental. A number of key principles have come to underpin Canadian forestry practices as mandated by forestry legislation, including the obligation for forestry companies operating on public lands to fully regenerate all areas harvested for timber and to consult the public on the preparation of forest management/harvest plans submitted to the relevant provincial authorities.Certification for sustainable forest management
As a result of growing public concern with sustainable development and conserving the integrity of the boreal forests, conservation initiatives are progressing on various fronts. The area in national and provincial parks and protected conservation areas is approximately 10% of the total boreal area. Most large forest products companies have certified their boreal forestry operations to one of three third-party, independently audited standards for sustainable forest management:- The Forest Stewardship Council’s FSC Boreal Standard;
- The Canadian standard CAN/CSA Z809;
- The Sustainable Forestry Initiative.
Sustainable Forest Management refers to managing a forest ecosystem in a manner that maintains and enhances its long-term health.
Protection
In July 2008 the Ontario government announced plans to protect 225,000 kilometers of the Northern Boreal lands.In February 2010 the Canadian government established protection for 5300 square miles (13,726.9 km²) of boreal forest by creating a new reserve of 4100 square miles (10,619 km²) in the Mealy Mountains area of eastern Canada and a waterway provincial park of 1200 square miles (3,108 km²) that follows alongside the Eagle River from headwaters to sea. A report issued in 2011 by the Pew Environment Group described the Canadian boreal forest as the largest natural storage of freshwater
Freshwater
Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...
in the world.
Boreal in culture and popular imagination
The boreal forest is deeply ingrained in the Canadian identity and the images foreigners have of Canada. The history of the early European fur tradersNorth American Fur Trade
The North American fur trade was the industry and activities related to the acquisition, exchange, and sale of animal furs in the North American continent. Indigenous peoples of different regions traded among themselves in the Pre-Columbian Era, but Europeans participated in the trade beginning...
, their adventures, discoveries, aboriginal alliances and misfortunes is an essential part of the popular colonial history of Canada. The canoe, the beaver pelt, coureur des bois
Coureur des bois
A coureur des bois or coureur de bois was an independent entrepreneurial French-Canadian woodsman who traveled in New France and the interior of North America. They travelled in the woods to trade various things for fur....
, Voyageurs
Voyageurs
The Voyageurs were the persons who engaged in the transportation of furs by canoe during the fur trade era. Voyageur is a French word which literally translates to "traveler"...
the Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
and the North-West Mounted Police, the construction of Canada’s transcontinental railways – all are symbols of Canadian history familiar to school children that are inextricably linked to the boreal forest.
The forest – and boreal species such as the caribou and loon – are or have been featured on Canadian currency. Another iconic and enduring image of the boreal was created by 20th-century landscape painters, most notably from the Group of Seven
Group of Seven (artists)
The Group of Seven, sometimes known as the Algonquin school, were a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920-1933, originally consisting of Franklin Carmichael , Lawren Harris , A. Y. Jackson , Franz Johnston , Arthur Lismer , J. E. H. MacDonald , and Frederick Varley...
, who saw the uniqueness of Canada in its boreal vastness. The Group of Seven artists largely portrayed the boreal as natural, pure and unspoiled by human presence or activity and hence only partly a reflection of reality.