The underlying soil of this damp Arctic coast is thick, solid permafrost, covered in summer with thermokarst "thaw lakes" of melted ice.

This coast has an arctic climate warm enough to allow plant growth in late-June, July and August only, and even then frosts may occur.

On the whole this is a damper, wetter area than the Low Arctic tundra ecoregion that continues along the coast west of here to Quebec.

Trees such as dwarf birch, willows, northern Labrador tea (Dryas) and alders grow in the warmer areas of the region, the Mackenzie River delta and the Yukon coast.

90% of natural habitat remains intact, except for the vicinity of Utqiaġvik, Alaska and the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and Kuparuk which are expanding along the coast and may in future spread into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is the only major protected area on this coast (see Arctic Refuge drilling controversy), and on and around the Dalton Highway and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.