If water is spilled on a map of Canada, the water flows down, flows south. Yet most of Canada’s freshwater runs north into the Arctic Ocean, and most of this is via one grand river – the Mackenzie. The Mackenzie River Basin is a global treasure, and provides enormous life-sustaining, cultural and spiritual value for both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities that live there. Yet the Mackenzie now faces many threats to its natural state, including the effects of the Alberta oil sands on downstream water quality and quantity and a mega-dam proposed in British Columbia known as “Site C.”

Learn about the importance of the Mackenzie River Basin, and what governments, foundations and NGOs, and individual Canadians can do to ensure its survival by reading Canada’s Great Basin.