Heather lake Ecological Reserve ER #87

ORIGINAL PURPOSE To protect representative trembling aspen stands and associated vegetation  and fauna within the Sub-Boreal Spruce Zone
OVERVIEW

Physical: The reserve encompasses an elongate, well-drained, northwest-southeast trending
ridge with a low, rounded summit. The ridge lies at the eastern edge of the floor of
the Rocky Mountain Trench, a structurally controlled valley with considerable
glacial drift on its floor. Two small lance-shaped lakes separated by narrows, and
their inflow stream, mark the east boundary. These drain via a creek around the
north end of the ridge and westward to Williston Lake. These are virtually the only
aquatic/wetland habitats in the reserve. Numerous lakes lie on the trench floor just
west of the reserve; the Misinchinka Ranges of the Rockies rise to the east.
Biological:

The feature of major interest is a fairly extensive, mature stand of trembling aspen
with a dense, diverse understory of shrubs. This is a productive site for aspen
growth compared to others in the region. White spruce also occurs, in some places
as a dominant and in others as a sub-dominant, in the aspen woods. Juvenile
spruces occur in much of the aspen forest and, in the absence of fire, this species
will probably become dominant over much of the area.

Only two communities have been described here to date. Typical aspen woods
have a shrub layer characterized by Douglas maple and birch-leaved spirea, and
herbaceous cover characterized by prince’s pine and rattlesnake-plantain. Other
common shrubs are Sitka alder, highbush-cranberry, red-osier dogwood, and red
elderberry. In white spruce stands, black huckleberry is the typical shrub while
queen’s cup, bunchberry, and red-stemmed feather moss characterize the ground
cover. Forest cover maps indicate that lodgepole pine stands also occur. Other
trees present include Subalpine fir, Engelmann spruce, paper birch and balsam
poplar.