Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Greenland-born icebergs drift through the northern waters of Labrador and Newfoundland for much of the year.
THE SOUTHERNMOST FIORD IS AN ARCTIC ENCLAVE
THE 170-KILOMETER-LONG
(105-mile) Saguenay Fiord was carved into the Canadian Shield by glaciers making
their way to the sea. In the process, it gouged out a classic steep-sided, U-shaped valley. Like most fiords cre-
ated in this way, the Saguenay has a deep inner basin and a shallow sill at its mouth. But it is also one of the
southernmost fiords in the world with a unique fauna. Many of the benthic invertebrates found in the colder
deep-water basin within the fiord are typically Arctic species and are not found in either the St. Lawrence
River or the gulf. Likewise, of the fifty fish species, more than 80 percent have an Arctic affinity, and many
are also endemic to the fiord. For these reasons, the fiord is considered by many biologists to be a biogeo-
graphical Arctic enclave—an isolated Arctic world unto itself.
