In pictures: Canada's top 10 'cool' biodiversity hotspots
For the UN Day for Biodiversity, Ducks Unlimited and the Boreal Songbird Initiative are highlighting Canada's unsung boreal treasures
The South Nahanni Watershed in the Yukon and Northwest Territories contains dramatic canyons dotted with limestone caves, underground rivers, labyrinths, and sinkholes and mounds with terraced hot springs.Steve Kallick
The Peel River Watershed in the Yukon and Northwest Territories was an ice-free refuge for animals during the most recent ice age and is the habitat of range-restricted mammals like the mountainous Dall’s sheep, the singular singing vole and the collared pika.Juri Peepre
Northern B.C.’s Sacred Headwaters contain some of Canada’s most important salmon-bearing rivers.Michael Fay
Caribou House in northern Quebec and Labrador. Until recently, this was home to the world’s largest herd of migratory tundra caribou.Valerie Courtois
Tursujuk National Park on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay is a summer sanctuary for beluga whales and home to a rare population of landlocked freshwater seals.Josée Brunelle
Northern Quebec’s Broadback River Watershed is of the few remaining large undammed rivers in the province, and is home to one of the last old-growth forests.Lynette Chubb
The Hudson and James Bay Lowlands is a massive carbon sink, the largest peatland system on the planet.Evan Ferrari
Pimachiowin Aki in northwestern Ontario and Manitoba has been proposed as a World Heritage Site because it is one of the last remaining intact portions of southern boreal forest.Jeff Wells
Thaidene Nene, the area surrounding the eastern arm of Great Slave Lake, features a diverse mixture of treed areas and tundra and is home to a wide variety of plant and animal species.Jason Charlwood
The Saskatchewan River Delta, one of the largest freshwater inland deltas in North America, is a huge carbon sink and home to as many as 200 bird species, 48 fish species and 43 mammals.Ducks Unlimited