4+Taiga+Plains

__**4 The Taiga Plains**__ The Taiga Plains are a series of flat plains and rolling hills that were created in both the Mesozoic and Cenozoic that stretch through the Yukon, British Columbia and Alberta, but is mainly located in the Northwest Territories. In our opinion, the Taiga Plains would be an ideal place to live in, for various reasons. These reasons include Landforms, Climate, Vegetation, Human Activities and more.

**__Landforms__**

The Taiga Plains have many exciting landform features that make them unique. In the northern areas, there is virtually open space everywhere! Sometimes you might even find hills! In the more southern areas, though, there are some occaisional scattered forests both of the deciduous and coniferous variety. There are also many of rivers and other small water bodies to liven up the barren emptiness! Also an exciting feature of the Taiga Plains is the occaisional canyon. Throughout the land, you can sometimes see canyons that range greatly in depth. As the Taiga Plains are part of the Interior Plains (also known as Canada's Breadbasket), this means that the weather is nice and dry for the most part, and that you can even grow wheat and other plants in the Taiga Plains! (Disclaimer: Despite being part of the Interior Plains, the physical region with a lot of growing potential, the Taiga Plains are actually almost completely covered in permafrost, making growing anything almost impossible. Sorry.)

**__Climate__**

As mentioned previously, the Taiga Plains have a very dry climate, recieving only an average of 200-400mm of precipitation yearly. Sometimes, the dry climate can even lead to forest fires due to careless campfires and other human activities. But you shouldn't let that deter you from coming here, as there is virtually no forest to burn, so forest fires are almost always rare, small and harmless. Now, if you prefer a rather cold climate all year round, the Taiga Plains would be perfect for you. The temperature in the Taiga Plains is generally cool, and has very short summers that have average temperatures of 12 degrees Celsius, and incredibly long winters that have average temperatures of -23 degrees, so you will never have to worry about getting heat strokes! But even though it's cold, there is often little snow in the Taiga plains. The mainly dry climate means that not enough moisture solidifies in the atmosphere and turns into snow. As a result, the Taiga Plains only get about 100-400 mm of snowfall a year. On the bright side - no blizzards! Another plus of the dry atmosphere is that because of it, the Taiga Plains have never experienced a single tornado, and have very a very small amount of thunderstorms a year. (About 0-10 thunderstorms a year.) There is also minimal amount of fog and hail compared to other ecozones.

**__Rocks and Minerals__**

The Taiga Plains are made up of massive buildups of flat sedimentary rock - resulting in some of the flattest land in Canada. These sedimentary rocks can be found all throughout the plains, however, in the areas closer to the East and closer to the Canadian Shield, very small deposits of metamorphic rock can be found. This is most likely the result of igneous rock in the Canadian Shield being transformed into metamorphic rock via heat and pressure, and then being carried into the Taiga plains by the convection currents on the Earth's surface. In the occaisional canyons of the Taiga plains, it is possible to see these incredibly exciting sedimentary rocks. Fun for the whole family! In terms of minerals, the Taiga plains rely on coal as their biggest source of energy, as it can be found all throughout the land. Smell that clean, coal infused air! It will pretty much be your only source of energy, as the Taiga Plains have almost NO metals of any value inside them. In addition to that, there are also an abundance of natural oil wells, most likely as a result of sediments forming over top of organic matter (fossil fuels) over the years.

**__Vegetation and Soil__**

The Taiga Plains are full of incredibly vivid and varied plant life. (In the bottom sixth of it anyway, the rest is empty and barren.) A lot of the forested areas of the Taiga Plains tend to be closer to the South, as the soil and climate are much more preferable, and the forestry tends to spread out more and more as you travel North. In the South, the forests are still quite small and mostly consisting of coniferous trees (Some examples of which would be white spruce, black spruce, and jack pine.), but its is also possible to find some deciduous trees when close to the Southern portion of the Taiga plains. Some examples of deciduous trees would be tamarack, paper birch, trembling aspen, and balsam poplar. In the northern half of the Taiga Plains, (which is argueably the more exciting half), you can find small clumps of moss, and the occasional shrub. Their view is breathtaking! The soil of Taiga Plains is much less so. The majority of the soil is coated in a thick layer of permafrost all year round (even in the in warmer areas, you can still find scattered permafrost), and the parts that aren't covered are incredibly dry and rocky. In some areas, the soil is a combination of both those two. Not to mention that the soil contains a large amount of acid in certain areas, that prevent plant life from growing there at all. The only half-decent quality soils can only be found near rivers, and those soils are in too little amounts to be of any use, and more often than not, all the minerals required to grow anything are frozen deep underground, making any attempt to farm or grow plants completely useless. But hey! At least it's not muddy! Anywhere!

**__Human Activities__**

The population of the Taiga Plains is incredibly small; only about 20 726 people live there. Of that population, 60% are actually aboriginal; no other ecozone has that much culture! (Except maybe the Lower Arctic, or the Arctic Cordillera...). The aboriginals who live here are the Athapskan and the Inuktituk. Only 30% are English-speakers, while the remaining 10% are Germans, Asians, and French. That's right, Germans live in the Taiga Plains. The population is very widely distributed throughout the ecozone, as many areas of it are unsuitable for living. The GDP (Gross Domestic Product or how much money the region makes in a year) is about 0.5 billion dollars, which is a lot less than what the other ecozones make, but that's not implying anything. Because of the Taiga Plains large amounts of coal and oil, the majority of this money comes from mining and oil refinery, which are then sold to many other ecozones. One of the biggest human activities in the Taiga Plains is hunting, as there is a large amount of fairly dim wildlife and nowhere for it to hide. Hunting is the biggest reason why people come to the Taiga Plains, but there are also many other activities that occur there. Some of these activities include fishing, attempted agriculture, light forestry, and taking a look at beautiful sights. (By "sights" we mean grass.) But don't go thinking that the Taiga Plains is completely empty! There are many urbanized areas (about 6 of them.) that can be found there. These urban areas are Hay River, Inuvik, Fort Nelson, Fort Simpson, and Fort Smith.

So if you want to get away from everything, (and we do literally mean EVERYTHING) you should come to the Taiga Plains, the most exciting ecozone of them all.

~Alex Frolov and Farzan Haq

Sources:

Clark, Bruce, John Wallace, and Kim Earle. //Marking Connections Canada's Geography//. 2nd ed. Don Mills, Ontario: Pearson Education Canada, 2006. 118-75. Print.

H. Stanford, Quentin. Canadian Oxford School Atlas 8th Edition. Don Mills: Ontario, 2004.