Cover photo: Logging in the Red Lake region of Ontario by © Garth Lenz © 2013 The contents of this paper are the sole property of the authors and cannot be reproduced without permission of the authors. [...] The spatial pattern of the simulated footprint differentiated between the dispersed road network associated with forestry in the south and the more isolated, but intensive, mining and hydroelectric A fork in the road: future development in ontario’s far north v developments in the north. [...] The simulated forestry activity in the south had consequences for the Pagwachuan Caribou Range where the risk to herd survival approached the high category and range dis- turbance exceeded a threshold of 35% – a guideline in the national caribou recovery strategy. [...] The study area extends south of the James Bay Lowland ecoregion into a portion of the Lake Abitibi ecoregion, within the Boreal Shield ecozone, to include the full extent of the Pagwachuan caribou range (OMNR 2012) and permit range-level considerations of land-use impacts to caribou. [...] The ecoregion is an area of transition, lying between the coniferous and mixed forests of the clay belt to the south, and the tundra to the north.