A region of breathtaking beauty, the Taiga Cordillera ecozone covers the northern Yukon and the southwest corner of the Northwest Territories.

The northern Yukon is partly mountainous, partly flat. The British and Richardson Mountains rise, respectively, in the

northwest and northeast. These uplands were largely untouched by glaciers and, at their highest, reach 1675 metres above sealevel. Two of the ecozone’s three National Parks, Ivvavik and Vuntut, are located next to each other in this area, and they display physical features characteristic of unglaciated landscapes, most notably, V-shaped valleys and isolated conical hills. Between these northern mountains, also unaffected by glaciation, are the Old Crow Flats, a 5000 square kilometre tundra expanse of wetlands and hundreds of shallow ponds and uniquely shaped rectangular lakes. The Flats are renowned as one of Canada’s richest sources of vertebrate fossils, having yielded the ancient remains of giant beavers, mammoths, and other long-gone animals.

The Mackenzie Mountains dominate the southwest part of the Taiga Cordillera. Composed mainly of limestone, this area offers a stunning array of landforms – rugged mountains, broad plateaux, labyrinthine caves dripping with stalactites, mighty rivers crashing though steep canyons, and precipitous