EXPLORING BEAVER HABITAT AND DISTRIBUTION WITH GOOGLE EARTH:
EXCEPTIONAL BEAVER HABITAT ON THE SLOPES OF THE PASQUIA HILLS, SASKATCHEWAN : COMPARING 2007 GOOGLE EARTH IMAGERY WITH 1945 AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY.
The slopes of the Pasquia Hills area in Northern Saskatchewan have some of the most impressive beaver habitat and beaver densities I have seen so far. Perhaps the title of Canada's Beaver Capital could be appropriate for the beaver community located just to the east of the Pakwaw Lake First Nations Community.
The NASA Geocover 2000 image below gives a good overveiw of the slopes of the Pasquia Mountains in Saskatchewan. Part of the Saskatchewan river delta is visible on the left side of the image, the plateau forested with dark conifers on uplands and bogs in the top right. In between the stronger slopes incised by streams, most of which have long series of beaver dams and the slightly sloping bottom lands with many former glacial Lake Agassiz beach lines broken by streams and alluvial fans, whic have provided exceptional beaver habitat. Or rather beaver havee transformed these habitats in large 'communtie's. Even at this reletaive low resolution image beaver ponts are visible as very small blue dots. Relief is exagerated
Canada's National Air Photo Library...Not as much 'in your face' as Google Earth, but more important to Canada because of its up to 90 years of environmental and land use information 'knowledge' base. An important legacy started by WW-1 pilots who in their "flying canoes" created Canada's first reconnaisance resource information base across its remote regions. The black and white inages below are available from the National Air Phot Libaray in Ottawa.
