Geography of Yukon

"'The Yukon is in the northwestern corner of Canada. The sparsely populated territory abounds with natural scenic beauty, with snowmelt lakes and perennial whitecapped mountains, including many of Canada's highest mountains. Although the climate is arctic and subarctic and very dry, with long cold winters, the long sunshine hours in the short summer allow a profusion of flowers and fruit to blossom. Most of the territory is boreal forest, tundra being the main vegetation zone only in the extreme north and at high elevations. The world's largest non-polar icefield, the Kluane icefields is mostly in the Yukon.

The territory is about the shape of a right triangle, bordering the American state of Alaska to the west, the Northwest Territories to the east and British Columbia to the south. The Yukon covers 482,443 square kilometres, of which 474,391 km² is land and 8,052 km² is water.

It is bounded on the south by the 60th parallel of latitude. Its northern coast is on the Beaufort Sea. Its western boundary is 141 degrees west longitude. Its ragged eastern boundary mostly follows the divide between the Yukon River Basin and the Mackenzie River watershed to the east in the Mackenzie mountains. All of the Yukon is west of Vancouver, British Columbia and contains Canada's westernmost communities.

Physical Geography

Except for the coastal plain on the Beaufort Sea (Arctic Ocean) coast, most of the Yukon is part of the American cordillera. The terrain includes mountain ranges, plateaus and river valleys.

The southwest is dominated by the Kluane icefields in Kluane National Park and Reserve, the largest non-polar icefields in the world. Kluane National Park also contains eight of Canada's ten highest mountains, including the five highest, all in the Saint Elias Mountains. A number of glaciers flow out of the icefields, including the Logan Glacier, the Hubbard Glacier and the Kaskawulsh Glacier.

Permafrost is common. The northern part of the territory has continuous permafrost, while it is widespread in the central part. Even the southern Yukon has scattered patches of permafrost.

Two major faults, the Denali fault and the Tintina fault have created major valleys called trenches: the Shakwak trench and the Tintina trench. The Shakwak trench separates the Kluane ranges from other mountain ranges north of it. The Haines Highway and the Alaska Highway north of Haines Junction are built in the Shakwak trench. The Tintina trench bisects the Yukon from northwest to southeast and its edges have rich mineral deposits including the Klondike gold and the lead-zinc deposits near Faro.

Sources: [http://www.geology.gov.yk.ca/publications/openfile/2002/of2002_8d_geoprocess_file/documents/general/userguide.pdf Yukon Geological Survey, "Yukon Geoprocess File User Guide"] (PDF file, 1.2MB)

Volcanoes

The volcanoes in the Yukon are part of the circle of volcanoes around the Pacific Ocean known as the Pacific Ring of Fire. The Yukon includes more than 100 separate volcanic centers that have been active during the Quaternary. The Fort Selkirk Volcanic Field in central Yukon is the northernmost Holocene volcanic field in Canada, including the young active cinder cone, Volcano Mountain. A volcanic field in southcentral Yukon is called Alligator Lake. It contains two well-preserved cinder cones that caps a small shield volcano. Lava from the cones traveled north and were erupted at the same time. Volcanoes in southwestern Yukon are part of the Wrangell Volcanic Field, which is related to the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the North American Plate at the easternmost end of the Aleutian Trench.

Yukon volcanoes include:

*Volcano Mountain
*Alligator Lake
*Fort Selkirk Volcanic Field
*Pelly Formation
*Bennett Lake Caldera
*Sifton Range volcanic complex
*Rabbit Mountain
*Felsite Peak
*Ibex Mountain
*Mount McNeil
*Miles Canyon Basalts
*Ne Ch'e Ddhawa
*Skukum Group
*Upper Becker Creek Cone

Mountain Ranges

The Saint Elias mountains are part of the Coast Mountains which range from southern British Columbia to Alaska and cover the southeastern Yukon. While the Saint Elias Mountains contain the highest mountains, there are numerous other mountain ranges, from the British Mountains in the far north, which are part of the Brooks Range, to the Mackenzie Mountains and the Richardson Mountains in the east, the Cassiar Mountains in the south-east, the Pelly Mountains in the central Yukon, and the Ogilvie Mountains north of Dawson City and along the Dempster Highway.

Yukon mountain ranges include:
*Brooks Range (mostly in northern Alaska)
**British Mountains, Yukon
*Cassiar Mountains, British Columbia and Yukon
*Mackenzie Mountains, Northwest Territories and Yukon
**Logan Mountains, Yukon
**Richardson Mountains, Yukon
**Selwyn Mountains, Yukon
***Hess Mountains, Yukon
***Nadaleen Range, Yukon
***Bonnet Plume Range, Yukon
***Wernecke Mountains, Yukon
***Knorr Range, Yukon
*Pacific Coast Ranges, Mexico to Alaska
**Coast Mountains, also in British Columbia and Alaska Panhandle
**Saint Elias Mountains, southern Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia
***Kluane Ranges, Yukon
**Yukon Ranges
***Anvil Range
***Dawson Range
***Miners Range, Yukon
***Nisling Range
***Ogilvie Mountains, Yukon
****Nahoni Range
***Pelly Mountains, Yukon
****Big Salmon Range, Yukon
****Glenyon Range
****St. Cyr Range
***Ruby Range, Yukon

Highest Mountains

Notes:
¹ Part of Whitehorse Census Agglomeration
² Includes the town and adjoining First Nations settlements of Upper Liard and Two and One-Half Mile Village.
³ Includes both the Village of Teslin and the adjoining Reserve
⁴ Includes both the settlement and the adjoining Reserve

Natural Resources

The Yukon has abundant mineral resources and mining was the mainstay of the economy until recently. Abundant gold was found in the Klondike region leading to the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. Placer gold is found in many streams and rivers, and there is an active placer mining industry in the Klondike and many other parts of the Yukon to this day.

Other minerals that have been actively mined include copper in the Whitehorse area, lead and zinc in Faro, silver, zinc and lead in the Mayo/Keno City area, asbestos in Clinton Creek, and copper, gold, and coal in the Carmacks area. The world's largest known deposit of tungsten is in the Macmillan Pass area in the Mackenzie Mountains near the Northwest Territories border. Non-metallic minerals mined have included jade and barite.

The fur trade was very important to the Yukon First Nation economy, but low prices and the impact of animal rights activists have devastated the traditional economy.

There are three hydroelectric generating stations in the Yukon: one at Schwatka Lake in Whitehorse, another near Mayo and a third on Aishihik Lake.

While the Yukon is mostly covered with forests, most of the trees are small and take a long time to grow and regenerate because of the dry cold climate. There is a considerable amount of small scale logging, but the only area that can sustain industrial forestry is in the southeast with its wetter climate. However, distance from markets and fluctuating prices have resulted in a boom-and-bust industry.

A small amount of natural gas is currently produced in the southeast, but little exploration has been done in other parts of the Yukon. It is believed that there are abundant natural gas fields in the Eagle Plains area along the Dempster Highway and possibly in the Whitehorse area, but distance from pipelines has hampered exploration.

Environmental issues

Global warming is affecting the north more than other parts of the world and the Yukon is no exception. While residents might welcome warmer temperatures, the ultimate effects are not known. Higher temperatures would mean more evaporation and drying out an already dry climate, resulting in more forest fires and reducing the biological productivity of boreal forests, whose growth is limited more by lack of moisture than temperature.

The Yukon is also the recipient of airborne pollutants from other parts of the world, especially Persistent Organic Pollutants. Consumption of the liver of certain wild animals and fish is no longer recommended because of these.

Locally, mine reclamation and dealing with mine tailings that cause acid mine drainage left over from mine closures is a major problem and is likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to clean-up.

In an effort to encourage natural resource exploration, the current (2005) Yukon Party government led by Dennis Fentie has suspended the application of the Protected Areas Strategy (established by a previous Yukon New Democratic Party government) and has indicated its intention of not creating additional protected areas or parks.

The Gwichʼin people of Old Crow are dependent on the Porcupine caribou herd for food and clothing, as are others in the Yukon. The Porcupine caribou herd migrates to the coastal plain in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska to give birth. That herd may be seriously threatened by oil-drilling in the ANWR.

References

*A.W.F. Banfield (1974). "The Mammals of Canada". University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-2137-9
*Ken S. Coates and William R. Morrison (1988). "Land of the Midnight Sun: A History of the Yukon". Hurtig Publishers, Edmonton. ISBN 0-88830-331-9
*William J. Cody (1996). "Flora of the Yukon Territory." NRC Research Press, Ottawa. ISBN 0-660-16406-X (Hardcover), ISBN 0-660-15898-1 (Softcover).
* [http://ecoinfo.ec.gc.ca/ecozones/ecozones_e.cfm Environment Canada, Pacific and Yukon Region Ecozones and Ecoregions]
* [http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climate_normals/index_e.html Environment Canada, "Canadian Climate Normals or Averages 1971-2000"]
*Pamela H. Sinclair, Wendy A. Nixon, Cameron D. Eckert, and Nancy L. Hughes, Eds. (2003). "Birds of the Yukon Territory." University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, British Columbia. ISBN 0-7748-1012-2.
* [http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/home/index.cfm Statistics Canada, "2001 Census"]
* [http://www.environmentyukon.gov.yk.ca/soe.html Yukon Department of the Environment, "Yukon State of the Environment Reports"] , various years (1995-2002)
* [http://www.geology.gov.yk.ca/publications/openfile/2002/of2002_8d_geoprocess_file/documents/general/userguide.pdf Yukon Geological Survey, "Yukon Geoprocess File User Guide"] (PDF file, 1.2MB)
* [http://www.gov.yk.ca/depts/eco/stats/sannual.html Yukon Bureau of Statistics, Population Report, June 2005]
* [http://www.gov.yk.ca/depts/eco/stats/facts/ Yukon Bureau of Statistics, Yukon Fact Sheet 2003]

External links

* [http://www.geology.gov.yk.ca/publications/summaries/framework.html Yukon Geological Survey]

Canada Geography"'