The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch 3,000 mi (4,800 km) in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in the southwestern United States. Depending on differing definitions between Canada and the United States, its northern terminus is located either in northern British Columbia's Terminal Range south of the Liard River and east of the Trench, or in the northeastern foothills of the Brooks Range/British Mountains that face the Beaufort Sea coasts between the Canning River and the Firth River across the Alaska-Yukon border. Its southernmost point is near the Albuquerque area adjacent to the Rio Grande Basin and north of the Sandia–Manzano Mountain Range. Being the easternmost portion of the North American Cordillera, the Rockies are distinct from the tectonically younger Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada, which both lie farther to its west.
The Coast Mountains are a major mountain range in the Pacific Coast Ranges of western North America, extending from southwestern Yukon through the Alaska Panhandle and virtually all of the Coast of British Columbia south to the Fraser River. The mountain range's name derives from its proximity to the sea coast, and it is often referred to as the Coast Range. The range includes volcanic and non-volcanic mountains and the extensive ice fields of the Pacific and Boundary Ranges, and the northern end of the volcanic system known as the Cascade Volcanoes. The Coast Mountains are part of a larger mountain system called the Pacific Coast Ranges or the Pacific Mountain System, which includes the Cascade Range, the Insular Mountains, the Olympic Mountains, the Oregon Coast Range, the California Coast Ranges, the Saint Elias Mountains and the Chugach Mountains. The Coast Mountains are also part of the American Cordillera—a Spanish term for an extensive chain of mountain ranges—that consists of an almost continuous sequence of mountain ranges that form the western backbone of North America, Central America, South America and Antarctica.
The Pacific Coast Ranges are the series of mountain ranges that stretch along the West Coast of North America from Alaska south to Northern and Central Mexico. Although they are commonly thought to be the westernmost mountain range of the continental United States and Canada, the geologically distinct Insular Mountains of Vancouver Island lie further west.
The Canadian Rockies or Canadian Rocky Mountains, comprising both the Alberta Rockies and the B.C. Rockies, is the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains. It is the easternmost part of the Canadian Cordillera, which is the northern segment of the North American Cordillera, the expansive system of interconnected mountain ranges between the Interior Plains and the Pacific Coast that runs northwest–southeast from central Alaska to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico.
George Mercer Dawson was a Canadian geologist and surveyor.
The Liard River of the North American boreal forest flows through Yukon, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, Canada. Rising in the Saint Cyr Range of the Pelly Mountains in southeastern Yukon, it flows 1,115 km (693 mi) southeast through British Columbia, marking the northern end of the Rocky Mountains and then curving northeast back into Yukon and Northwest Territories, draining into the Mackenzie River at Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories. The river drains approximately 277,100 km2 (107,000 sq mi) of boreal forest and muskeg.
Yukon is in the northwestern corner of Canada and is bordered by Alaska and the Northwest Territories. The sparsely populated territory abounds with natural scenic beauty, with snowmelt lakes and perennial white-capped mountains, including many of Canada's highest mountains. The territory's climate is Arctic in territory north of Old Crow, subarctic in the region, between Whitehorse and Old Crow, and humid continental climate south of Whitehorse and in areas close to the British Columbia border. Most of the territory is boreal forest with tundra being the main vegetation zone only in the extreme north and at high elevations.
UTC−07:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of −07:00. In North America, it is observed in the Mountain Time Zone during standard time, and in the Pacific Time Zone during the other eight months. Some locations use it year-round.
The Pacific Cordillera, also known as the Western Cordillera or simply The Cordillera, is a top-level physiographic region of Canada, referring mainly to the extensive cordillera system in Western and Northwestern Canada that constitutes the northern part of the North American Cordillera. The mountain ranges in this region were covered during the Pleistocene by the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, the extent of which gives perspective on the geographic extent of this region. The cordillera extends from the Alaska's Brooks and Alaska Ranges, southeast through most of the Yukon and British Columbia as well as the southwestern fringe of Northwest Territories and Alberta, to stretch its margin beyond the Canada–United States border with five extensive lobes reaching into the mountain valleys of Montana and Washington.
The Rocky Mountain Trench, also known as the Valley of a Thousand Peaks or simply the Trench, is a large valley on the western side of the northern part of North America's Rocky Mountains. The Trench is both visually and cartographically a striking physiographic feature extending approximately 1,600 km (1,000 mi) from Flathead Lake, Montana, to the Liard River, just south of the British Columbia–Yukon border near Watson Lake, Yukon. The trench bottom is 3–16 km (1.9–9.9 mi) wide and is 600–900 m (2,000–3,000 ft) above sea level. The general orientation of the Trench is an almost straight 150/330° geographic north vector and has become convenient as a visual guide for aviators heading north or south.
The North American Cordillera, sometimes also called the Western Cordillera of North America, the Western Cordillera or the Pacific Cordillera, is the North American portion of the American Cordillera, the mountain chain system (cordillera) along the western coast of the Americas. The North American Cordillera covers an extensive area of mountain ranges, intermontane basins and plateaus in Western/Northwestern Canada, Western United States and Mexico, including much of the territory west of the Great Plains.
The Cassiar Mountains are the most northerly group of the Northern Interior Mountains in the Canadian province of British Columbia and also extend slightly into the southernmost Yukon Territory. They lie north and west of the Omineca Mountains, west of the northernmost Rockies and the Rocky Mountain Trench, north of the Hazelton Mountains and east of the Boundary Ranges. They form a section of the Continental Divide, that, in this region, separates water drainage between the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. Physiographically, they are a section of the larger Yukon-Tanana Uplands province, which in turn are part of the larger Intermontane Plateaus physiographic division.
The Stikine Ranges are a group of mountain ranges and mountainous plateaus in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. They are the northernmost subdivision of the Cassiar Mountains and among the least explored and most undeveloped parts of the province.
The Tuya Range is a mountain range in the Stikine Ranges of the Cassiar Mountains in the far north of the Canadian province of British Columbia, near its border with the Yukon Territory and to the southwest of Watson Lake, Yukon, which is the nearest major settlement.
The Interior Mountains or Northern Interior Mountains are the semi-official names for an expansive collection of mountain ranges that comprises much of the northern half of the Canadian province of British Columbia and a large area of southern Yukon.
The Northern Rocky Mountains, usually referred to as the Northern Rockies, are a subdivision of the Canadian Rockies comprising the northern half of the Canadian segment of the Rocky Mountains. While their northward limit is easily defined as the Liard River, which is the northward terminus of the whole Rockies, the southward limit is debatable, although the area of Mount Ovington and Monkman Pass is mentioned in some sources, as south from there are the Continental Ranges, which are the main spine of the Rockies forming the boundary between British Columbia and Alberta. Some use the term to mean only the area north of the Peace Arm of the Williston Reservoir, and in reference to Northern Rocky Mountains Provincial Park, while others consider the term to extend all the way south, beyond the limit of the Hart Ranges at Mount Ovington, to include the McBride area, the Sir Alexander Group and Mount Robson.
The Selwyn Mountains are a mountain range in northern Canada, forming part of the border between the Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories, and which are part of the Eastern System of the Canadian Cordillera. They are neighboured on the east by the Mackenzie Mountains and on their northwest end by the Brooks Range. To their southwest is the Yukon Plateau, while a lower southward extension of their mountain spine protrudes into British Columbia as the Liard Plateau. In some reckonings the Selwyns and Mackenzies are considered to be part of the Rocky Mountains, but that range officially lies only to the south of the Liard River and the aforesaid plateau. Named for Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn, director of the Geological Survey of Victoria from 1852 to 1869, director of the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) from 1869 to 1894 and President of the Royal Society of Canada from 1895 to 1896.
The interior Alaska–Yukon lowland taiga is an ecoregion in the taiga and boreal forests biome, of far northern North America.
