Located in northeastern Canada, this ecoregion covers a large part of northern Quebec and most of Labrador, reaching from Hudson Bay and James Bay in the west, across to Ungava Bay and east to the Atlantic Ocean coast of Labrador. This is a taiga ecoregion and therefore stops at the treeline, beyond which is tundra. This is a rugged rocky landscape including an area fjords on the Atlantic coast of Labrador. The hills and plateaus are dotted with many lakes and string bogs, and patches of tundra on the Mealy Mountains and elsewhere.
This is a cold part of the world with average annual temperatures ranging from −6°C in Hudson Bay to 1°C on the Labrador coast.[3]
This ecoregion is almost entirely in its natural state, apart from some areas damaged by hydro-electric power generation projects and mining activities such as the Voisey's Bay Mine. There are no substantial protected areas although the proposed Mealy Mountains National Park Reserve will be the largest park in Atlantic Canada and other parks are proposed for Richmond Gulf and the Clearwater Lakes on Hudson Bay, and Atikonak Lake on the Quebec–Labrador border.
^Eric Dinerstein, David Olson, et al. (2017). An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience, Volume 67, Issue 6, June 2017, Pages 534–545; Supplemental material 2 table S1b. [1]