Wild Canada - The Eternal Frontier

foreign [Music] has some of the most remarkable Wilderness found anywhere in the world [Music] and some of the planet's most iconic wildlife [Music] thank you [Music] it has the longest coastline of any country in the world [Music] it has more surface fresh water than any other Nation on earth [Music] and the largest intact Forest left on the and yet much of this Great Wilderness and Wildlife today is a result of a shaping by the hands of humans going back thousands of years [Music] Canada is a land filled with astounding Wilderness and Wildlife and this series will explore this incredible natural diversity and the forces that produced it [Music] fifteen thousand years ago Canada was buried under a kilometer thick continent-wide glacier this is where the story of Canada's modern wildlife and Landscapes actually begins [Music] as sea levels lowered a land bridge with Asia was created along which New Life entered North America and for the first time humans arrived in this new world [Music] right from the start they began to change the land and Wildlife around them [Music] and nothing would ever be the same again [Music] but fifteen thousand years later Canada is considered one of the wildest countries in the world [Music] and one of its greatest natural spectacles happens each year on the country's Atlantic Coast this is the province of Newfoundland and it's as far east as you can go on the North American continent [Music] for thousands of years this place has drawn travelers to its Shores [Music] humpback whales arrive here each spring from as far away as the Caribbean drawn by the sheer abundance of this place it's a richness that comes from the sea [Music] over the years this richness Drew many different types of visitors oh in 1497 John Cabot arrived and became the first European since the Vikings to lay claim to this new found land Cabot was attempting to find a new trade route to China but instead stumbled upon the rich natural resources of Canada here on the East Coast that wealth begins under the sea capelin huge Shoals of these small fish numbering in the Millions Mass along the coast of Newfoundland each spring [Music] these nutrients Rich fish support the incredible abundance of life here okay [Music] the Atlantic Cod were once here in numbers as great as the capelin and such Rich fishing grounds lured the first Europeans to these Shores foreign schools of cod are mostly gone but that doesn't mean the cape pin here is safe these productive Seas attract the largest gathering of humpback whales in the world these massive Predators have traveled thousands of kilometers to be here at this time of year to Feast on the capelin thank you they haven't fed for months and they're hungry they can eat up to a ton of Caitlin in a single day [Music] one massive goal these whales can take in 50 000 liters of water and cabling the capelin aren't just hanging around the coast to feed the whales they're here for a reason breed Caitlyn a beach spawners so to reproduce they have to get to shore [Music] and there's only one way to get there [Music] they have to surf [Applause] thank you most of the time it's hard to truly appreciate the abundance of the scene as it's often out of sight hidden beneath the surface [Music] but with the cape in spawn here in Newfoundland the incredible productivity of this place literally washes up onto Shore and this puts them in Easy reach [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] sand and tumbling bodies each capelin has to find a partner [Music] then in a dozen seconds that it takes for the wave to slide back over the sand and into the sea they have the perfect conditions for mating the female lays her eggs while competing males flank her jostling for position to fertilize them [Music] thank you [Music] if they're lucky the next wave will carry them back to the Sea while many of the females survive and return to the Sea to spawn again almost all the males die [Music] like tiny gems the fertilized eggs cling to the sand two weeks later the larvae will hatch and be washed out of sea by the same waves that brought their parents here to spawn [Music] the richness of this Coast supports some of the world's largest seabird colonies at Cape St Mary's 24 000 gannets make up this breeding colony like the whales they come here every year to Feast on the abundance of the Caitlyn and raise their young [Applause] [Laughter] it's the incredible abundance of the Marine World along the Atlantic coast it drew many of the first Europeans to these Shores and these early visitors like Cabot this was a new frontier waiting to be exploited [Music] it didn't take them long to realize that there were already people here John Cabot was one of the first to encounter a people called the bayotug the native inhabitants of Newfoundland and Labrador to celebrate their tribal identity they completely covered their bodies clothing and weapons with red ocher this led to the name red Indians being applied to many of the native peoples of the continent [Music] this was a meeting of two very different worlds but the Baio took didn't want to have anything to do with these new arrivals Cabot and the other early explorers quickly came to realize that this new world was already home to many people [Laughter] but what they never could have imagined was the seemingly wild Landscapes they encountered here had been shaped by the first nation's inhabitants over thousands of years [Music] at the time of Cabot's arrival the iroquine and Algonquian people of the Eastern forests had created a rich and Lush Homeland in 1679 one European visitor described these Eastern Oak forests as vast Meadows Vineyards trees bearing good fruit so well disposed one would think nature alone could not have made it and that turned out to be very true indeed [Music] it was a fertile Patchwork of Oak forests and grasslands a savannah-like habitat while Wildlife throw when Cabot arrived this continent supported huge populations of wild deer Millions more than it does today please over thousands of years the people here had engineered their very own Garden of Eden careful use fire [Music] the first human inhabitants of North America weren't shaping the landscape with fire on just a small and local scale they were burning tens of millions of hectares each year foreign [Music] would burn away the young trees creating large grassy openings in the forest and clearing the way for the larger trees protected by their thick bark to grow even bigger and produce more nuts and fruit for them to eat thank you with controlled Burns these people created one of the most productive Landscapes on the continent [Music] but it didn't last [Music] although today modern Forest managers are rediscovering the positive effects of Fire centuries ago the practice of burning these forests ended and the rich open Savannah habitat of these Oak forests was lost now after 300 years fire is once again shaping the remaining Black Oak forests of Eastern Canada [Music] but only a few tiny patches remain [Music] this is like High Park in Toronto which was built over the top of this once great habitat [Music] without the practice of burning the remaining hardwood forests of Canada look very different from those that stood in Cabot's time while not as rich and varied they are much more colorful because of the abundance of maple trees in the forest today Maples are very sensitive to fire so they are kept back by the burning of the forest but when the burning stopped trees started to take over [Music] one of Canada's most famous natural displays is a relatively recent creation arising from our new relationship with forests [Music] in Winter Maple's Broad Leaf would be too flat and too thin to protect from freezing so each fall the tree Cuts its losses pulling its resources back into its trunk letting the leaves die [Music] and that leads to one of the natural worlds most stunning displays of death [Music] thank you [Music] the early European settlers were quick to take advantage of the changing composition of these Eastern forests the sugar maple became one of the most important trees in Canada it's Rich sugar content is the basis of maple syrup [Music] and once a year in early spring the sweet sap from these trees can be extracted [Music] the early European settlers learned about tapping maple trees from the First Nations people who'd been doing it for centuries [Music] but the European settlers turned it into an industry by the middle of the 18th century Canada was producing seven million pounds of maple syrup annually but centuries before in the early days of maple tapping the Europeans were still pushing their Frontier Westward [Music] Canada has more Lakes than any other country on Earth which provided people with a ready-made Network to travel on [Music] and to do this the first nations of the Eastern Forest built a craft the canoe from the bark of the birch tree [Music] the explorers and fur Traders learn from the First Nations how to use the canoe and quickly adopted it as a means to travel further inland [Music] but not all the waterways were so easy to Traverse this is where the canoe really came into its own it could be carried around water that was too dangerous to paddle [Music] the Marvel of the birchbark canoe was its lightness compared to the low it could carry [Music] foreign [Music] by adopting the canoe the Europeans were able to push their Frontier West and North across the country deeper into the heart of Canada's boreal forest but even the canoe was no match for the Canadian winter River ice and deep snow makes travel all but impossible foreign [Music] most of Canada is a different place for half of the year and getting through the Northern Forest in Winter presented a whole new set of challenges Canada's boreal forest stretches unbroken across the country in a band 2 000 kilometers deep and ten thousand kilometers across it's considered the largest intact Forest left in the world [Music] six months every year snow transforms the forest [Music] winter is a difficult season for many wild animals but some are better equipped for it than others Wolverines are very elusive they're rarely seen and few have ever been captured on camera with large furry feet it almost floats across the deep snow and with one of the most sensitive noses in the animal kingdom it can find food almost anywhere Wolverines are Masters at winter you can see how this one spreads its toes with each step expanding the surface area of its feet allowing it to stay on top of the snow animals abilities to get around over the snow were not lost on the people that lived in these forests with webbing made from the Raw Hide of deer or moose stretched between strips of bent wood they designed shoes that mimics the effects of the Wolverine's feet foreign [Music] for travel through the winter as the canoe was in the summer thank you the Boreal forest provides many things for the people and Wildlife that live here [Music] and on its far Northern Edge where it borders with the Arctic the forest provides shelter for one of the arctic's most famous animals [Music] and she's here for a very good reason over the winter she gave birth in this Den beneath the trees and after five months inside it must feel good to be out [Music] [Music] nowhere else in the world can you see Polar Bears playing on trees [Music] oh [Music] wow [Music] these new Cubs still have a lot to learn from their mother and will spend the next two years with her before striking out on her own ah wow as spring approaches these Bears leave the shelter of the trees to follow the retreating Ice north but there are many Forest creatures that never leave and some that only come out at night [Music] squirrels are the quintessential Forest creature and these ones are special because not only are they nocturnal they can fly [Music] while they don't fly in the true sense of the word Flying Squirrels can glide for 15 meters between trees their tails act like Butters steering them around obstacles [Music] [Music] Flying Squirrels feed on the seeds in cones that grow on the trees in which they live and they inhabit all types of forests right across Canada Flying Squirrels stay active all year they don't hibernate but there are other creatures living in these Northern Canadian forests that have right on the southern edge of the great forest in central Manitoba each spring there is a magical Reawakening from beneath the forest floor [Music] red-sided garter snakes are just waking up from their eight-month-long Winter's sleep [Music] they journeyed here last fall from up to 80 kilometers away to hibernate in these deep Limestone sinkholes [Music] the males emerge first in their thousands [Music] coiling together for warmth under the early spring Sun they're all straining to catch the first whiff of an alluring scent on the air thank you then slowly in ones and twos the females begin to appear females emitter pheromone that drives the males who are much smaller into a frenzy dozens of males cling to her trying to mate afterwards the female will try to dislodge her partner by doing a body roll while the male tries to hang on to keep his competitors from mating with her as well in many ways it's surprising to see cold-blooded creatures like snakes creating such a spectacular display in the northern climes of Canada but conditions draw them together here as it's the only shelter deep enough underground for them to survive the cold Canadian winter this concentration makes it the largest gathering of snakes in the world further south and west from here at the center of the country the forest gives way to a different landscape the prairies at one time this vast grassland stretched All the Way South to Mexico it's broad flat expanse was created by the sediments deposited when the continental glaciers melted [Music] these open grasslands supported the North American buffalo once the most numerous and still perhaps the most famous Prairie Animal and there were other interesting characters all adapted to life in the open grassland like the sharp-tailed grout burrowing owl and the black-tailed prairie dog foreign [Music] Buffalo herds no longer roam this grassland there is one animal that appears purpose built for these vast open planes and still runs free today [Music] Pro horn Antelope are the fastest hooved mammals on the planet foreign [Music] the ecological ghosts relics of a time when this open grassland was home to cheetah-like cats and other Predators fast enough to catch them [Music] the Cheetahs are long gone along with a lot of the wildlife that lived here Millennia ago [Music] today the pronghorns Sprint on alone running a race that ended ten thousand years ago [Music] pronghorns have always lived in the center of the country because further west the landscape changes radically to the West the Prairies run into a crumpled landscape that gives rise to the Rocky Mountains an unbroken chain almost 5 000 kilometers long of some of the tallest Peaks on the continent [Music] in some places this range is over 500 kilometers wide [Music] rugged country seems ill-disposed to life there are some amazing creatures here [Music] bighorn sheep battle for breeding Supremacy [Music] and Beyond the Rockies the mountains go on and on there are a dozen different Mountain chains running through British Columbia each one different from the next the otherworldly colors of the volcanic rainbow mountain range derives from a process thought to be similar to that which created the color of soil on Mars [Music] and nearby the stickine River cuts a great dark Chasm through the mountains on its way to the Pacific more people have walked on the moon than have paddled through this Canyon [Music] these vertical Canyon walls are home to mountain goats sure-footed relatives of antelopes they seem at ease making their way across these sheer Cliff faces where one slip came in a long before to foreign the vertical walls of the stakeem canyon provide some truly spectacular mountain goat habitat the water from these mountains flows West carrying great loads of minerals and silt to the Pacific here in British Columbia where the mountains meet the sea there's a combination of elements that create the most productive landscape in the country [Music] land and sea life here benefits from the alignment of these two elements [Music] foreign it's the forests where the link between the Sea and the land tells the most [Music] Canada's West Coast is home to a third of the world's remaining temperate rainforest [Music] one of the richest habitats on the planet [Music] among these trees there is a greater abundance of life than anywhere else in Canada it's a rich and magical place filled with strange and wonderful creatures like the spirit bear a rare color phase of the North American black bear he's not an albino he's a black man but born with a combination of rare genes that makes his fur White these forests are his home and provide everything he needs to survive each summer the network of rivers that flow through his Forest brings food to his doorstep but just like any bear he has to catch it [Music] thank you fishing is a skill and some bears are naturally better at it than others this particular bear doesn't seem to be very good at it his white fur doesn't seem to give him any special status in the bare hierarchy [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] he's easily pushed out of his fishing spot and has to look elsewhere for salmon maybe that was just the thing to change his luck they seem so close maybe a new technique will do the trick but a surprise attack from above doesn't work either finally he gets one he's gonna need a lot of these over the next few months to prepare him for winter for centuries this Rich temperate rainforest has supported generations of spirit bears but further north in Canada's vast Tundra region the wildlife has to survive in a landscape far less productive geographically the center of the country is actually in the middle of the Arctic tundra the Canadian Arctic is one of the least populated parts of the planet [Music] it seems people have had very little impact here for a long time it was thought to be a landscape that had not changed since the Ice Age [Music] Caribou that live here have to migrate over huge distances to find enough food to eat yeah the plants of the tundra are very poor in nutrients it's hard for the animals to extract much from the mosses and lichens that grow on the tundra today Caribou are one of the few grazers that can survive on this meager food but the tundra wasn't always like this recent scientific research shows that fifteen thousand years ago the tundra environment was in fact a grassland and it was grazed by very different creatures than we see on the Prairies today mammoths it was a surprisingly productive habitat this far north that is until a new arrival as the Ice Age ended people arrived on the grassland known as the mammoth step it supported vast herds of grazes but these people were skilled Hunters and the creatures that lived here had no defense against them within a few centuries most of these animals were extinct scientists now believe that with a mammoth's gone the grasses died out causing the ground to turn wet and boggy in this fertile grassland disappeared and the land became a tundra that we see today making it the biggest human change landscape in the country fifteen thousand years ago the tundra was Canada's first Frontier today Canada has a new frontier [Music] the Arctic and as with earlier Frontiers humans continue to alter the world around them right now the Arctic landscape is undergoing one of the biggest human cause changes in the history of the planet change in the global climate is melting the Arctic opening up a new frontier instead of probably not been seen here in a million years but it's a fundamentally different Frontier than the past the changes here are being caused by humans all over the world and created unintentionally no one knows how or even if the life in this region will adapt to these new conditions [Music] the changes we bring to the Arctic will be felt far beyond the boundaries of this place they will influence the entire planet [Music] the story of Canada's Eternal Frontier continues continued [Music] [Music]

Channel: Free High-Quality Documentaries

Views: 229,788

Keywords: Free High-Quality Documentaries, HD, Full HD, Quality, ice, Canada, bears, Atlantic Coast, Newfoundland, spectacles, humpback whale, capelin, swarm, Iroquoian, shore, Algonquian, forests, oak, grasslands, wildlife

Id: MGN0P6FfZ7s

Length: 52min 17sec (3137 seconds)

Published: Fri May 05 2023