Lesser Slave Lake Provincial Park is a landscape of contrasts. The southern end of the park consists of storm beaches, beach ridges and blowout dunes behind which are a series of marshes and wetlands. At the north end of the park the land rises abruptly from the lake for 450 metres to the summit of Marten Mountain. Changes in moisture, temperature and drainage associated with the rise in elevation result in diverse forest habitats. Balsam poplar and patches of ostrich fern grow along stream courses. Balsam fir (near the western limit of its range) is common. White spruce is found on moist sites and lodgepole pine grows near the summit. In 1993, the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory began a banding program to track global trends in neo-tropical songbirds. Boreal species are good indicators of the effects of climate change and pollutant loading in the atmosphere. It is one of Canada's northernmost bird observatories and is one of the only boreal forest bird observatories in the world.