Physical Geography
Central Alberta is a part of the Parkland Natural Region. It covers 10-15 percent of the available landscape for a total of 60,000 square kilometres. From East to West, Parkland stretches from the Alberta-Saskatchewan provincial border to the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. A variant name for the Natural Region is Aspen Parkland or, more poetically, Aspenland. This refers to the trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides), the dominant tree of the region. For biologists, the Aspen Parkland is a transitional zone between the arid grasslands to the south and the wetter, cooler boreal forest to the north. It marks the zone between foothills and prairie from west to east. It is a uniquely Canadian landscape, also found in parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Featured Audio
Heritage Trails #136 The Many Battle Rivers of Alberta
Learn about the battles that the native people had that gave way to the names of the Battle Rivers in Alberta.
It is a landscape that was formed over thousands of years as a result of the retreat of glaciers in the last Ice Age (20,000 to 12,000 years ago). The impact of the passage of glaciers is evident in the shape of the land and landforms associated with glaciation: rounded hills (drumlins), sinuous ridges (eskers) and fine sand, which is found throughout the region. The remnants of lakes and rivers also testify to the powers of the ice as it scoured and modified the existing landscape.
