Boreal Plains

The Boreal Plains Ecozone, as defined by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), is an ecozone in the western Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. It also has minor extensions into northeastern British Columbia and south-central Northwest Territories.

Industry in this ecozone once consisted primarily of forestry and agriculture, but in 1967 the Great Canadian Oil Sands Limited began extracting bitumen from the Athabasca oil sands. Operations there have expanded significantly since 2003, and the oil sands are becoming an increasingly significant economic factor in the region.

Wood Buffalo National Park, the largest national park in Canada, and Whooping Crane Summer Range, the only nesting and breeding area for the critically endangered whooping crane, are both located in the northern portion of this ecozone.

Overlaying a bedrock of Cretaceous shale and Tertiary sediments are thick deposits of soil that form a flat terrain in the Interior Plains. It borders the Montane Cordillera to the west, closely following the border between Alberta and British Columbia. To its south is the Prairies ecozone for its entire extent, while to the north are the Taiga Plains, with its northeastern periphery adjacent to the Taiga Shield. 20 sub-region are located within the ecoregion.

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