Gull Glacier in the Tanquary Fiord, Quttinirpaaq National Park. (Photo: Ansgar Walk/Wikimedia Commons)

This 37,775 square kilometer region at the apex of Ellesmere Island contains sedimentary mountains, glaciers, ancient freshwater ice shelves, ice caps and fiords. It’s also home to numerous species including muskox, wolves, arctic hare and the endangered Peary caribou. A large portion of the park is a polar desert, receiving less than 2.5 centimeters of precipitation per year. Lake Hazen, one of the largest freshwater lakes in the circumpolar region, sits inside the desert and acts as a thermal oasis for plants and animal species. The park also has a treasure trove of pre-contact archaeological sites, including a route used by early Indigenous Peoples of the Canadian Arctic to settle in Greenland 4,500 to 3,000 years ago.

Learn more about the scientific research going on in Quttinirpaaq’s polar desert.

Ivvavik/Vuntut/Herschel Island (Qikiqtaruk), Yukon

Ivvavik National Park, Vuntut National Park and Herschel Island (Qikiqtaruk) Territorial Park form a 15,500-square-kilometer network of protected areas in northwestern Yukon that contain countless Indigenous archeological sites and important wildlife habitat. The area forms part of the Beringia corridor, a glacier-free land bridge over the Bering Sea from Siberia to the Yukon traversed by the ancestors of North America’s Indigenous Peoples around 15,000 years ago, and has evidence of human occupation as they adapted to the climate over thousands of years. Its natural heritage includes a portion of the Old Crow Flats, an internationally-recognized wetland area for breeding and migratory waterfowl, and supports the Porcupine caribou herd, which accounts for 10 per cent (123,000 caribou) of the world’s caribou population.  

See the region’s natural beauty through Ivvavik’s Artists in the Park program.

Tr’ondëk Klondike, Yukon

This area at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers depicts the exceptional adaption and innovation of the region’s Indigenous peoples over thousands of years, including their present-day accommodation and negotiations of land settlement agreements and resource development. As the site of the Klondike Gold Rush from 1896-1898, the area, which includes Dawson City, is also an example of a mining landscape.

Explore the region’s First Nations heritage with writer Teresa Earle and photographer Fritz Mueller.

Gwaii Haanas, British Columbia

The tiny island of SGang Gwaay in the Queen Charlotte Islands off the northwest coast of mainland British Columbia is already a world heritage site (inscribed in 1981) for its cultural significance to the Haida people. However, the Haida homelands are represented by the entire Gwaii Haanas area, which includes 138 islands and more than 600 archeological sites in Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, National Marine Conservation Area and Haida Heritage Site. The natural heritage of the site includes the San Christoval Mountains, old growth temperate rainforests and diverse wildlife.

Learn about the Haida homelands and the Haida Nation’s efforts to preserve their cultural heritage.

Áísínai’pi (Writing-On-Stone), Alberta

This sacred landscape in the Milk River Valley is the traditional territory of the Niitsítapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) and contains more than 50 rock art sites on the valley’s eroded sandstone cliffs. The area includes burial sites, vision quest locations and a medicine wheel. The mixed grass prairie landscape is also of ecological and geological importance, supporting numerous wildlife species and housing interesting rock formations called hoodoos.

Learn more about Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park and watch a video of the region.

Pimachiowin Aki, Manitoba-Ontario