The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence forest, is the second largest forest in Ontario, which contains a wide range of tree and shrub species. This forest extends along the St. Lawrence River across central Ontario to Lake Huron and west of Lake Superior along the border with Minnesota. This region covers approximately 20 million hectares of Ontario, two-thirds of which is productive forest. This area contains a mixture of landscapes and plant and animal species. This is a transitional zone between the southern deciduous forest of eastern North America and the predominantly coniferous boreal forest.
In this region, coniferous trees such as eastern white pine, red pine, eastern hemlock and white cedar, commonly mix with deciduous broad-leaved species, such as yellow birch, sugar and red maples basswood and red oak. Species more common in the boreal forest, such as white and black spruce, jack pine, aspen and white birch also exist here. This forest contains many species of fungi, ferns, mosses and shrubs.
Much of the forest in the Great-Lakes St. Lawrence forest is uneven aged, meaning that young and old trees can be found within the same group of trees. This makes for a very different forest from the boreal, which is mostly even aged. The southern portion of the Great-Lakes St. Lawrence forest extends into the populated areas of Ontario. A much larger portion of the forest in this region is privately owned (38%) when compared to the Boreal Forest (4%).
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More Facts
- The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence region contains 19 percent of Ontario's forests.
- The region is home to a wide variety of wildlife, including white-tailed deer, moose, black bear, wolves, pileated woodpecker, various migratory birds, beaver, muskrat, otter and many other mammals, birds, fish and insects.
View of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Forest
