The Northwest Territories taiga stretches across the Northwest Territories and part of Yukon, encompassing almost all of Great Bear Lake — the largest lake entirely within Canada — and the Mackenzie River Valley northward toward the Beaufort Sea. Its flat to gently rolling terrain is dominated by open, stunted black spruce, with low-lying wetlands covering roughly 25–50% of the area and better-drained uplands carrying mixed boreal forest of white spruce, lodgepole pine, tamarack, and birch beneath shrubs like dwarf birch and Labrador tea. The subarctic climate brings short, cool summers and long, harsh winters, with modest annual precipitation of about 100–500 mm. Though much of the ecoregion remains wild — roughly 89% of habitat is intact and only a small share is formally protected — it faces threats from proposed highway extension, mining, and oil and gas development.

At a glance

About the boreal forests/taiga biome

The vast northern forest belt of spruce, fir, pine, and larch, defined by long, severe winters and short growing seasons. Often underlain by permafrost and wetlands, the taiga forms one of the world’s largest terrestrial carbon stores.

National refinement sub-regions

Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion

Computed from each plant's stated USDA zone range against this ecoregion's NRCan Plant Hardiness Zone 1981-2010 GeoTIFF published current zone range, with the CHELSA mid-century warming delta applied for the projection. Plants whose stated range falls outside both the current and projected zone end up dropped; the rest land in one of the three buckets below.

Collections for this ecoregion

Curated multi-plant collections whose members all fit this ecoregion's zone range — no won't-grow members smuggled in. Overall fit class shown per collection is the weakest link across its members.

Related ecoregions