Browse "Mountains"

The Blue Mountains (Montagnes Bleues) is a 240 km long group of high hills along the Canada and United States border in the Eastern Townships.

The Cariboo Mountains is the most northern range making up the Columbia Mountains.

Cascade Mountains, BC, are the north end of largely volcanic mountain ranges extending to California, 180-260 km east of the Pacific Ocean. There are no active volcanoes in BC like the US Cascades' Mount St Helens and others.

The Cassiar Mountains extend from the Yukon Territory 440 km southeast to the confluence of the Finlay and Fox rivers in north-central BC. Cassiar is thought to derive from KASKA, the name of a native group whose traditional territory lies in the mountains.

The Coast Mountains are a continuous mountain chain extending from the Fraser Lowlands near Vancouver, 1,600 km north into the Yukon.

Columbia Mountains are a block of mountains 608 km long and 256 km wide that dominate the landscape of southeastern BC.

A cordillera is a major system of often parallel mountain ranges that includes the intervening plateaus, valleys and plains.

Ranching became important in the area after the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived at MAPLE CREEK in 1883. Beginning in 1906, part of the Cypress Hills was protected as a federal forest reserve. RESOURCE RIGHTS were transferred to the provinces in 1930.

Fairweather Mountain, elevation 4663 m, is located at the southern end of the St Elias Range, on the BC-Alaska border, where a segment of the BC border juts southwest, nearly cutting off the Alaska Panhandle.

Foothills, a region of rolling, undulating or hilly terrain lying between an area of plains and a mountain range.

Golden Hinde, elevation 2200 m, is the highest mountain on Vancouver Island.

Spruce forest is common below about 1200 m elevation, but the upper slopes of the ranges are treeless. The area supports an abundance of wildlife, including grizzly and BLACK BEAR, timber wolf, Dall sheep, mountain goat, caribou and moose.

Formed of ancient Precambrian rocks and heavily glaciated during the Quaternary (1.65 million to 10 000 years ago), the mountains support more than 70 small glaciers, the southernmost in eastern North America.

Although the other limits are less well defined, the highlands may be considered to extend 100-200 km northward from the scarps and to stretch from the Gatineau River in the west (mean elevation 400 m) some 550 km to the SAGUENAY RIVER in the northeast.

The range, generally steep on the coastal side and scarred by deep glaciation and faulting, reaches highland plateaus and flat-topped peaks before sloping away more gently to the east. In places deep fjords and bays cut into its base, and rivers, such as the HUMBER RIVER, flow through its valleys.