L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site
At the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula of the island of
Newfoundland, the remains of an 11th-century Viking settlement are
evidence of the first European presence in North America. The excavated
remains of wood-framed peat-turf buildings are similar to those found in
Norse Greenland and Iceland.
Dinosaur Provincial Park
In addition to its particularly beautiful scenery,
Dinosaur Provincial Park – located at the heart of the province of
Alberta's badlands – contains some of the most important fossil
discoveries ever made from the 'Age of Reptiles', in particular about 35
species of dinosaur, dating back some 75 million years.
Kluane / Wrangell-St. Elias / Glacier Bay / Tatshenshini-Alsek
These parks comprise an impressive complex of glaciers
and high peaks on both sides of the border between Canada (Yukon
Territory and British Columbia) and the United States (Alaska). The
spectacular natural landscapes are home to many grizzly bears, caribou
and Dall's sheep. The site contains the largest non-polar icefield in
the world.
SGang Gwaay
The village of Ninstints (Nans Dins) is located on a
small island off the west coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida
Gwaii). Remains of houses, together with carved mortuary and memorial
poles, illustrate the Haida people's art and way of life. The site
commemorates the living culture of the Haida people and their
relationship to the land and sea, and offers a visual key to their oral
traditions.
Wood Buffalo National Park
Situated on the plains in the north-central region
of Canada, the park (which covers 44,807 km2) is home to North America's
largest population of wild bison. It is also the natural nesting place
of the whooping crane. Another of the park's attractions is the world's
largest inland delta, located at the mouth of the Peace and Athabasca
rivers.
Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks
The contiguous national parks of Banff, Jasper,
Kootenay and Yoho, as well as the Mount Robson, Mount Assiniboine and
Hamber provincial parks, studded with mountain peaks, glaciers, lakes,
waterfalls, canyons and limestone caves, form a striking mountain
landscape. The Burgess Shale fossil site, well known for its fossil
remains of soft-bodied marine animals, is also found there.
Historic District of Old Québec
Québec was founded by the French explorer Champlain
in the early 17th century. It is the only North American city to have
preserved its ramparts, together with the numerous bastions, gates and
defensive works which still surround Old Québec. The Upper Town, built
on the cliff, has remained the religious and administrative centre, with
its churches, convents and other monuments like the Dauphine Redoubt,
the Citadel and Château Frontenac. Together with the Lower Town and its
ancient districts, it forms an urban ensemble which is one of the best
examples of a fortified colonial city.
Gros Morne National Park
Situated on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland,
the park provides a rare example of the process of continental drift,
where deep ocean crust and the rocks of the earth's mantle lie exposed.
More recent glacial action has resulted in some spectacular scenery,
with coastal lowland, alpine plateau, fjords, glacial valleys, sheer
cliffs, waterfalls and many pristine lakes.
Miguasha National Park
The palaeontological site of Miguasha National
Park, in south-eastern Quebec on the southern coast of the Gaspé
peninsula, is considered to be the world's most outstanding illustration
of the Devonian Period known as the 'Age of Fishes'. Dating from 370
million years ago, the Upper Devonian Escuminac Formation represented
here contains five of the six fossil fish groups associated with this
period. Its significance stems from the discovery there of the highest
number and best-preserved fossil specimens of the lobe-finned fishes
that gave rise to the first four-legged, air-breathing terrestrial
vertebrates – the tetrapods.
Rideau Canal
The Rideau Canal, a monumental early 19th-century
construction covering 202 km of the Rideau and Cataraqui rivers from
Ottawa south to Kingston Harbour on Lake Ontario, was built primarily
for strategic military purposes at a time when Great Britain and the
United States vied for control of the region. The site, one of the first
canals to be designed specifically for steam-powered vessels, also
features an ensemble of fortifications. It is the best-preserved example
of a slackwater canal in North America, demonstrating the use of this
European technology on a large scale. It is the only canal dating from
the great North American canal-building era of the early 19th century to
remain operational along its original line with most of its structures
intact.
Landscape of Grand Pré
Situated in the southern Minas Basin of Nova Scotia, the
Grand Pré marshland and archaeological sites constitute a cultural
landscape bearing testimony to the development of agricultural farmland
using dykes and the
aboiteau wooden sluice system, started by
the Acadians in the 17th century and further developed and maintained by
the Planters and present-day inhabitants. Over 1,300 ha, the cultural
landscape encompasses a large expanse of polder farmland and
archaeological elements of the towns of Grand Pré and Hortonville, which
were built by the Acadians and their successors. The landscape is an
exceptional example of the adaptation of the first European settlers to
the conditions of the North American Atlantic coast. The site – marked
by one of the most extreme tidal ranges in the world, averaging 11.6 m –
is also inscribed as a memorial to Acadian way of life and deportation,
which started in 1755, known as the
Grand Dérangement.
Red Bay Basque Whaling Station
Red Bay, established by Basque mariners in the 16th
century at the north-eastern tip of Canada on the shore of the Strait of
Belle Isle is an archaeological site that provides the earliest, most
complete and best preserved testimony of the European whaling tradition.
Gran Baya, as it was called by those who founded the station in 1530s,
was used as a base for coastal hunting, butchering, rendering of whale
fat by heading to produce oil and storage. It became a major source of
whale oil which was shipped to Europe where it was used for lighting.
The site, which was used in the summer months, includes remains of
rendering ovens, cooperages, wharves, temporary living quarters and a
cemetery, together with underwater remains of vessels and whale bone
deposits. The station was used for some 70 years, before the local whale
population was depleted.
Mistaken Point
This fossil site is located at the south-eastern tip of
the island of Newfoundland, in eastern Canada. It consists of a narrow,
17 km-long strip of rugged coastal cliffs. Of deep marine origin, these
cliffs date to the Ediacaran Period (580-560 million years ago),
representing the oldest known assemblages of large fossils anywhere.
These fossils illustrate a watershed in the history of life on earth:
the appearance of large, biologically complex organisms, after almost
three billion years of micro-dominated evolution.
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