Category:Far North

Ontario’s Far North is among the largest and most intact ecological systems on the planet. This region covers 42 per cent of the total area of the province or approximately 452,000 km2, which is larger than the entire size of most countries around the world. Covering the northern third of Ontario, it is roughly split between the boreal forest on the Canadian Shield to the south, and the bogs and fens of the Hudson Bay Lowlands to the north. The boreal forest covers approximately 158,000 km2 of this area, habitat to more than 200 species, such as the threatened population of woodland caribou. This region also functions as a carbon sink of global proportions, absorbing more than 12.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually and storing 97 billion tonnes of carbon, according to the Ontario government.

The Far North is home to 36 First Nations communities whose peoples have resided there for millennia. Approximately 25,000 people live in these communities which are typically accessible only by air or winter roads. Presently, large-scale development is generally limited to mineral exploration and development; the Musselwhite Mine and the Victor Diamond Mine are both in active production, as well as intensive prospecting in the area known as the Ring of Fire. The Far North is not currently open to commercial timber harvesting, which occurs to the south in the middle third of the province in the area of the undertaking (AOU). Protected areas currently cover 7.6 per cent of the Far North; the majority of these lands are in a single site, Polar Bear Provincial Park, on the shores of Hudson and James Bays.