I´m not familiar with gardening in an area as cold as yours, but by your description of the site, you could probably do well with yew. It will be slow growing, but long lived, evergreen and can be trimmed to shape, if you want.

Maybe someone from a climate similar to yours can help out further.

Eduarda

I believe deer eat yew. You could try some of the hollies with big THORNY leaves, although they are slow growers.

Most hollies get chomped as well, but yews are real deer candy. They will chew them down to wood; no go there.

While they will tip browse red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), they generally don't eat it up because of the scent. White Pine (Pinus strobus) fits that bill too...

Deer eat young holly leaves, which are surprisingly soft, but usually leave the older thorny leaves alone, so they shouldn't completely defoliate a spiny holly.

try cypress, cedar, hemlock. All will succeed in shade and deer seem to leave them alone in my neighborhood. Also some spruces will take some shade and deer don't like them.

You may want to try mountain laural and bayberry ,they have a good spread, tho' I am not sure about their deer appeal. Red cedars would be a good pick too I think so.

For shade and deer resistant try Ilex 'Compacta', Holly 'Dragon Lady', Leucothoe, Skimmia, Mahonia (Oregon Grape Holly), Boxwood 'Wintergem' or 'Green Mountian' or 'Green Beauty' and Pieris. These are known to be some of the more deer resistant plantings for your area. As a general rule of thumb deer avoid anything with a rough texture or a scent. It is true however, if they are hungry enough deer will eat anything, but it would help to go with these plantings. Hope this helps.

Lee