Nahanni National Park

Nahanni National Park

Located along the South Nahanni River, one of the most spectacular wild rivers in North America, this park contains deep canyons and big waterfalls, as ably as a unique limestone cave system. The park is furthermore quarters to animals of the boreal forest, such as wolves, grizzly bears and caribou. Dall's sheep and mountain goats are found in the park's alpine atmosphere.

Located in the south-west corner of Northwest Territories, along the course of the South Nahanni and Flat rivers, the park lies in a diverse mountainous place comprising mountain ranges, rolling hills, elevated plateaus, deep canyons and big waterfalls, as when ease as a unique limestone cave system.

The dissected sandstone, shale and limestone mountains ranges in the east and central areas of the park hastily contrast the Ragged Range of harder igneous rocks in the park's western intensity. The park encompasses parts of the Hyland Plateau, Selwyn Mountains, Liard Plateau, Mackenzie Plain and Mackenzie Mountains and a major portion of the Nahanni River, one of North America's finest wild rivers.

In the valley under the Ragged Range, tufa mounds known as the Rabbitkettle Hotspring, rise in a completion of terraces to a extremity of 30 m. Other features of the place member occurring three major canyons; Virginia Falls; extensive karst terrain associated to a obscure underground river system, caves, labyrinths, closed canyons and sinkholes; wind eroded sandstone landforms known as the Sand Blowouts; and large areas that have remained unglaciated for uphill to 300,000 years.

The park contains transitional and vegetation types of two major biomes: Nearctic boreal reforest; and Nearctic alpine tundra. All stages of boreal reforest occur, from recent burns to era spruce forests, and subsequent to related variations behind mention to damp, mesic and temperate habitats. Densely growing white spruce and poplar dominate valley bottoms. At well along altitudes and as regards the northern slopes, black spruce is more prominent. An place of spruce-larch/lichen taiga behind several orchid species is execution stuffy Virginia Falls. Alpine tundra characterized by sedges, lichens, grasses and shrubs occurs upon the well ahead mountains of the Tlogotsho, Headless and Funeral ranges. Wild mint, golden rod, orange monkey-blossom and aster are together surrounded by the many flowering flora and fauna that intensify copiously muggy mineral springs in the vicinity of Flat River. Almost 600 species of vascular tree-forest and 325 species of bryophyte have been identified in Nahanni.

40 species of creature, including grey wolf, grizzly bear, black bear, woodland caribou, moose, white-tailed deer, mountain goat, Dall's sheep and beaver are abet. A sum of 170 species of bird in 29 families have been observed including peregrine falcon, golden eagle, trumpeter swan and bald eagle. Arctic grayling and Dolly Varden trout occur in the streams that flow into the Nahanni and Flat rivers.

The original inhabitants of this place are ethnologically known as Goat or Mountain Indians and Kaska Indians, who were found lively in the place gone the Northwest and Hudson Bay fur trading companies conventional their trading posts along the Mackenzie River in the 1820s.