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Past stories Living off-the-grid New Brunswick's Saint John River Ontario's Bruce Trail Canadian Ski Marathon Elk Island National Park Rallying for rallysport Montreal - Circus city Beluga Bytes Dawson - a musical adventure Bald Eagle Confederation Trail Boning up on the badlands Ukkusiksalik National Park Geocaching Discover Cypress Hills Saint Joseph's Oratory A walk through Stanley Park Sudbury's science centre Acadia continues Toronto's underground world

The 2,600 square kilometres that make up the Cypress Hills form what looks like an oblong layer cake — high in the north and sloping to the south. Layers of sedimentary rock reach 600 metres above the surrounding upland.

More than 70 million years ago, the entire region was covered by the Bearpaw Sea, the clay bottom of which would become the shale base of the hills. Over time, other deposits were compressed and stacked. The top conglomerate formation was created by the cobbles and gravel carried there by rivers 50 million years ago. It provides a hard cap that protects underlying layers from erosion.

Before glaciation, rivers coursed around the hills. This lowered the surrounding land even more, which shaped the region into its current high, flat plateau.

The glaciers that moved in during the last ice age did little to alter the hills. Ice flowed around the plateau, and the top 100 metres became a nunatak, an ice-free island in a glacial sea. That part of the hills remains a unique montane ecosystem in the region.