Post-Congress Tours

Soils along the Klondike Highway of the Northern Cordillera: Participants would travel from Toronto to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, for the start of this field tour. The tour would run from Whitehorse to Dawson City along the Klondike Highway. The tour would start by visiting agricultural operations near Whitehorse to provide an overview of agriculture in the region, and the impacts of a warming climate on production in the north. The tour would then travel north towards Dawson with stops to explore soils developed in three glacial surfaces (Wisconsinan, penultimate and early Pleistocene). Sites in the Klondike Goldfields, part of the unglaciated uplands, would be visited. The trip would then travel along the “Top of the World” highway from Dawson to the Alaska border, providing views of the treeless landscape with cryoplanation terraces, solifluction lobes and evidence of the control of aspect on permafrost. The tour would then return to Whitehorse, passing by Kluane Lake, with an opportunity to visit a research station and loess soils.  

Soils of the Pacific Coast into the Rocky Mountains: The West Coast Mountain Circle Tour would provide participants with a spectacular journey through of British Columbia, from Vancouver to Whistler (host town of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games), arid grasslands near Lillooet and Lytton, the rocky Fraser Canyon, and through the lush farmland of the Lower Fraser Valley. On this tour you would be able to immerse yourself in old growth temperate rainforests, marvel at the snow-capped mountains that tower over the Pacific Ocean, and to experience an almost desert-like climate in grassland ecosystems. The tour would also offer opportunities to explore a wide variety of soil types including Podzols, Brunisols, Gleysols, Chernozems, and Organic soils with its unique great group of Folisols that are found at cool, humid forest ecosystems on the West Coast of British Columbia. The tour would have several stops to highlight agricultural diversity of the region, discuss environmental issues affecting agricultural and forest operations, and illustrate reclamation practices of sand and gravel pits.   

Soils of the Prairies north to the subarctic Hudson Bay Lowlands: Participants would experience soils, landscapes, and culture from the eastern edge of the Canadian Prairies around Winnipeg, Manitoba, north through the boreal forest of the Canadian Shield, and finally to the subarctic environment of the Hudson Bay Lowlands at Churchill, Manitoba. The journey would begin in the Red River Valley examining Vertisols and Gleysols formed  on lacustrine materials deposited by post-glacial Lake Agassiz (the largest fresh-water lake known to have existed), then through the Canadian Shield a region dominated by Luvisols, Podzols and soils under discontinuous permafrost, including permafrost collapse scars, and finally on to Churchill, crossing the second largest peatland in the world, the Hudson Bay Lowlands. At Churchill, we would tour local Regosols, Cryosols, Brunisols and Organic soils, including palsa, hummock fen, and peat plateau features. Along the tour, there would be many opportunities to visit sites of cultural and natural interest, such as the fur trading post of the North-West Company at Fort Gibraltor, the Itsanitaq Museum, and whale watching in the Churchill River Estuary.   

Soils of the Atlantic Coast deep into the Appalachian Mountains: The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. This post-congress tour would start in Halifax, Nova Scotia and conclude in Quebec City and features stops at four UNESCO World Heritage Sites (Peggy’s Cove, Bras d’Or Lake Biosphere Reserve, Joggins Fossil Cliffs). The main soil types observed in this tour will be Organic (Histosols), Gleysols, Luvisols, and Podzols. On the last day, the participants are encouraged to explore the historic features of the Old Quebec City (also a UNESCO World Heritage Site).   

Soils among the Great Lakes down the St. Lawrence River: This tour would begin with stops near Toronto to visit the environmentally-sensitive Oak Ridges Moraine, a major glacial feature in southwestern Ontario. Northeast of the moraine lies the Peterborough Drumlin Field with thousands of drumlins, where we would focus on a catena of soils from drumlin ridge to depression. Soils of this region are dominated by Brunisol, Luvisols and Gleysols. The tour would continue east with stops on the Frontenac Axis, the Thousand Islands, and on to Ottawa to explore the complex geology and surficial deposits of the Ottawa Valley, including Leda clay deposits from the Champlain Sea. Continuing to the south of Montreal, it would stop to visit Mont St-Hilaire of the Monteregian Hills range that was formed as a series of plutonic intrusions during the Cretaceous Period. Crossing to the north of the St. Lawrence River, participants would have the opportunity to view Podzols soils on the Canadian Shield.  

Soils and Agriculture in Sub-Arctic Greenland: This tour, to be organized and delivered by colleagues from Denmark, would focus on high-latitude farming in the Kujataa UNESCO cultural heritage site in southern Greenland, which bears witness to the cultural histories of the Norse farmer-hunters who started arriving from Iceland in the 10th century, and of the Inuit hunters and Inuit farming communities that developed from the end of the 18th century. Visits to sheep farms in Viking Age cultural heritage sites, and to fields trials with amendment of glacial rock flour, may be complemented with a hiking trip to the Greenlandic Inland Ice Sheet, to study a chrono-sequence of initial soil formation. Image credit: Søren Munch Kristiansen, Aarhus University.