 Painting by Bernard Pelletier
© Parks Canada, Bernard Pelletier |
Behold! An empire of mountains and ice. Here, in a vast international preserve, are most of the tallest peaks in North America and the largest icefields outside the polar caps. Half the land mass is permanently draped in snow and ice the other half fosters forests and tundra and stable populations of eagles, grizzlies and other species often at risk elsewhere.
Kluane National Park and Reserve in the Yukon and British Columbia’s Tatshenshini-Alsek Park (which is managed in co-operation with the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations) are the Canadian components of a vast, unbroken ecological unit that covers 97,000 square
kilometres and is untouched but for a historic Aboriginal presence. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Glacier Bay National Park, both in Alaska, complete the first bi-national entry on the World Heritage List.
The St. Elias Mountains extend over most of the preserve area, hosting the largest group of great peaks on the continent, including massive 5,959-metre Mount Logan, the highest mountain in Canada. Moist air blown in from the Pacific Ocean makes for tremendous snows in the area, creating a massive icefield and producing hundreds of glaciers, among them some of the world’s largest and fastest-moving. Three dozen major rivers drain the region. Carrying immense loads of silt and rock, they are continually reshaping the landscape.
Vegetation ranges from coastal and valley forests to alpine tundra, nurturing, among other fauna, the largest concentration of Dall sheep in the world.