How can i go about finding out what the land was like before it was inhabitted where i live in the praries?

I live in the praries of Alberta Canada. What plants, grasses, wild flowers and animals were first here before the settlers came?

How can i go about finding out what the land was like before it was inhabitted where i live in the praries?
Ecologists and botanists who have wanted to answer questions like this have turned to studying pollen.





Calling such study "pollenology", they take cores of sediments in ponds and lakes and then analyze the pollen grains they find to reconstruct what species were present at what times in the past. This enables them to reconstruct past climates.





A lot of great work has been done in this field, for instance the work of Margaret Davis (ref 1).