[3] This ecoregion contains a number of mountainous areas on the east coast of Canada and along the Saint Lawrence River in eastern Quebec (including Anticosti Island in the Saint Lawrence) and the coast up to near Labrador, on the island of Newfoundland, in the highlands of New Brunswick, and the Cape Breton Highlands on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

The climate is cool and wet and the coast is subject to heavy fog, especially on the Strait of Belle Isle between Labrador and Newfoundland for example.

[2] The dominant trees of these coastal forests are balsam fir Abies balsamea along with black spruce Picea mariana, white spruce Picea glauca on the shoreline, and paper birch Betula papyrifera and aspen Populus tremuloides where the forest is regrown following logging or other disturbance.

Mammals include moose (Alces alces), American black bear (Ursus americanus), Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), red fox (Vulpes vulpes), snowshoe hare and grey wolf.

However up to 40% remains intact, especially in the north of the region in Quebec, while the Gaspé Peninsula, northern New Brunswick and Newfoundland are more heavily populated and the environment therefore much changed and fragmented.