Central Canadian Shield forests
This ecoregion consists of rolling hills, lakes, bogs and rocky outcrops covering a large curved swathe on the Canadian Shield from eastern Manitoba and Northern Ontario running southeastwards through Thunder Bay District to the north shore of Lake Superior and then northeastwards into western Quebec. The area has a cool climate with summer temperatures averaging around 13°C dropping to a very cold -17°C in winter, with the hills around Lac Seul in northwestern Ontario being warmer and wetter than most of the area. Average rainfall in the eastern side of the ecoregion is 550mm per year, rising to 750mm in the centre (near Lake Nipigon for example), up to 900mm in the west. Specific areas include Lake Nipigon and Big Trout Lake (Ontario). These forest contrast with more severe boreal forest ecoregions such as the Eastern Canadian Shield taiga to the north, which covers most of Northern Quebec and Labrador.
Eastern forest-boreal transition
The ecoregion includes most of the southern Canadian Shield in Ontario and Quebec north and west of the Saint Lawrence River lowlands including the eastern shores of Lake Superior and other areas of the Great Lakes, Lake Timiskaming, the southern Laurentian Mountains, Lake Nipissing, Quebec City, the Saguenay River and parts of Georgian Bay, Greater Sudbury/North Bay, Ontario, Saguenay, Quebec, the Clay Belt and Temagami in Ontario. There is a separate section of the ecoregion in the Adirondack Mountains in upper New York State, United States. However the higher elevations of the Laurentian Mountains and the northern Appalachian Mountains in Canada constitute the Eastern Canadian forests ecoregion.