`The North is always there like a presence;
it is the background of the picture without which
Canada would not be Canadian.
(Andre Siegfried, 1937)

Draped like a green scarf across the shoulders of North America, the boreal or "northern" forest is Canada's largest biome or environmental community. It occupies 35% of the total Canadian land area and 77% of Canada's total forest land, stretching between northern tundra and southern grassland and mixed hardwood trees. The boreal forest's animals, plants and products affect each Canadian every day, from paper products, to the jack pine railway ties, through to the air we breathe. This northern forest, named after Boreas, the Greek god of the North Wind, is an inevitable and unavoidable part of who we are.

Starting in the Yukon Territory, the boreal forest forms a band almost 1,000 kilometres wide sweeping southeast to Newfoundland. To its north is the treeline and beyond that the tundra of the arctic. To its south, the boreal forest is bordered by the subalpine and montane forests of British Columbia, the grasslands of the Prairie Provinces, and the Great Lakes - St. Lawrence forests of Ontario and Quebec.

The boreal forest is an integral part of our economy, history, culture and natural environment. It gives birth to new life through its diverse ecosystems and helps to sustain our lives through the renewal of the air above and soil below. This vast body of land provides the lakes, streams and rivers that act as the veins and arteries of so much of our country. It is also an important source of forest products, and, thereby, a significant part of the economic base of Canada.

The boreal forest is characterized by the predominance of coniferous trees. Fossil records show that their first occurrence was during the Miocene Epoch, from 12 to 15 million years ago. From this time forward the boreal forest's adaptation to the immense forces of fire, glacial ice, insect infestation and disease have produced the forest for which we now have stewardship. These natural disturbances have been and continue to be necessary for the maintenance of the forest's ecological balance. Human activities, such as tree harvesting, mining, manufacturing, resource development and recreational use are causing stress and changes to this land. Their cumulative and long-term effects will cause far-reaching and potentially disastrous changes to the forest.