Athabasca Sand Dunes
Athabasca Sand Dunes
The Athabasca Sand Dunes have been called Canada's most unlikely landscape. The dunes are located in Northern Saskatchewan, just south of the Northwest Territory's border and they are the largest dune complex in Canada, and the most northerly dune complex in the world.
Unlike most dunes, which are associated with deserts, the Athabasca Dunes are in wetland and boreal forest ecosystems, and hence are extraordinarily biologically diverse. The dunes are home to over 300 plant species of which 42 are rare and 10 are endemic (found nowhere else). The dunes are also one of Canada's best bird watching areas, being home to 30 species of wood warblers (the champagne of songbirds) alone. The dunes are so unique that the Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Park was formed in 1996 that protected some, but not all, areas. Scientists from around the world study the dunes' ecological complexity.
Formed by glaciers, which ground the local Athabasca Sandstone to powder, the dunes began their life as a delta in a prehistoric giant freshwater lake. Today, the remnants of Lake Athabasca border the edge of the 100 km long dunes, providing a recreational paradise for adventurous travelers. Access to the dunes is not easy. No roads exist in this remote land of boreal forests growing on sphagnum wetlands. Access is easiest by floatplane that can be chartered from Stony Rapids, SK, 200 km distant. Several remote wilderness lodges also exist in the vicinity of the dunes.
The abstract, swirling image of the dunes featured in the 2005 Western Canada's Endangered Wilderness calendar is not the protected main dune complex but an unprotected, emergent dune complex in the nearby William River Delta.
