The North

Northern Ontario covers close to 800,000 sq km. Although this amounts to 87% of Ontario’s total land area, only 6% of the population lives here. Many isolated Ojibwe and Cree First Nations communities are located throughout the region, accessible to the south only by plane or ice roads constructed during the winter months.

Geographically, the area is covered mostly by the Canadian Shield, an extensive rocky plateau rich in minerals. The climate is also more extreme, with hot summers and bitterly cold winters. The northern economy is resource based, with principal industries that include mining, forestry and hydroelectricity.