This folder contains locations of beaver activity at the extreme edge of its range in Northern Manitoba. This area of the Hudson Bay Lowlands (just North West of Churchill) is mainly composed of permanently frozen polygonal peat plateaus. Beavers seem to be absent in most of this area (no food supply) except for the some of the small streams feeding the North Knife and South Knife River. No beaver activity was observed North of the Seal River.

Beavers are typically boreal and temperate species surrounded by trees which provide a good food supply. The Northern Limit of the Beavers is interesting since beavers seem to follow climate warming trends (not just the last decades, but and are migrating north since the little ice age, the last period of climate cooling a few hundred years ago). With the acceleration in warming, the rate of migration into the subartcic may accellerate along the rivers and streams where they live of willow and alder.
Apperently Moose and Red Fox are also moving into the subarctic, but their "foot print" is not visible on a satellite image. Google Earth with its incredible ability to scale into high resolution detail makes beaver activity and possibly its migration north "mappable"



I am working on a series of transects through Canada's north to establish a sort of baseline on the GE visible status of beaver . Results will be added to this thread on a regular basis.


http://www.geostrategis.com