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Yellowknife - named after the copper
knives of Slavey aboriginal people - can hide
the fact that it's a city that shouldn't really
be here. Its high-rise core of offices and
government buildings exists to administer the
NWT and support a workforce whose service needs
keep a population of some 18,500 occupied in a
region whose resources should by rights support
only a small town. Even the Hudson's Bay Company
closed its trading post here as early as 1823 on
the grounds of economics, and except for traces
of gold found by prospectors on the way to the
Klondike in 1898, the spot was a forgotten
backwater until the advent of commercial gold
and uranium mining in the 1930s. This prompted
the growth of the Old Town on an island
and rocky peninsula on Great Slave Lake,
Yellowknife Oiled by bureaucratic profligacy and
the odd gold mine, the city has blossomed ever
since, if that's the word for so dispersed and
unprepossessing a place. Today, the chances are
you'll only be here en route for somewhere else,
for this is the hub of many airline routes
across the
NWT and parts of Nunavut. |
One of the territories of Arctic Canada, the
Northwest Territories (NWT; French, les Territoires
du Nord-Ouest) has a landmass of 1,171,918 square
kilometres and a population of 42,944 as of January
1, 2005.
Its capital has been Yellowknife since 1967; see
also List of Northwest Territories capitals and List
of communities in the Northwest Territories.
The Northwest Territories are located east of Yukon,
west of Nunavut, and north of British Columbia,
Alberta, and Saskatchewan.
Geographical features include the vast Great Bear
and Great Slave Lakes, as well as the immense
Mackenzie River and the canyons of the Nahanni
River, a national park and UNESCO World Heritage
Site. In the Arctic Archipelago, the Northwest
Territories includes Banks Island, Parry Peninsula,
Prince Patrick Island, and parts of Victoria Island
and Melville Island. The highest point is Mount
Nirvana near the border with Yukon at elevation 2773
m (9098 ft).
History
The Northwest Territories were created in 1870, when
the Hudson's Bay Company transferred Rupert's Land
and the North-Western Territory to the government of
Canada. These formed the Northwest Territories. This
immense region comprised all of modern Canada except
British Columbia, the coast of the Great Lakes, the
Saint Lawrence River valley and the southern third
of Quebec, the Maritimes, Newfoundland, and the
Labrador coast. It also excluded the Arctic Islands
except the southern half of Baffin Island; these
remained under direct British rule until 1880.
After the transfer, the Territories were gradually
whittled away. The province of Manitoba was created
in 1870, a tiny square around Winnipeg, and then
enlarged in 1881 to a square region composing the
modern province's south.
The North-Western Territory in 1859In 1876, the
District of Keewatin, at the centre of the
territory, was separated from it. In 1882 and again
in 1896, the remaining portion was divided into the
following districts (corresponding to the following
modern-day areas):
Alberta (southern Alberta);
Assiniboia (southern Saskatchewan);
Athabaska (northern Alberta and Saskatchewan);
Franklin (the Arctic islands and Boothia and
Melville Peninsulas);
Mackenzie (mainland NWT and western Nunavut);
Saskatchewan (central Saskatchewan);
Ungava (modern-day northern Quebec and inland
Labrador, as well as an offshore area in Hudson
Bay);
Yukon (modern Yukon Territory).
Keewatin would be returned to the NWT in 1905.
See also: Districts of the Northwest Territories
In the meantime, Ontario was enlarged northwestward
in 1882. Quebec was also extended, in 1898, and
Yukon was made a separate territory in the same year
to deal with the Klondike Gold Rush, and remove the
NWT government from administering the sudden boom of
population, economic activity and influx of
non-Canadians.
Alberta and Saskatchewan were created in 1905, and
Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec acquired the last of
their modern territories from the NWT in 1912. This
left only the districts of Mackenzie, Franklin
(which absorbed the remnants of Ungava in 1920), and
Keewatin. However, in 1925 the boundaries of the NWT
were extended all the way to the North Pole on the
sector principle, vastly expanding its territory
onto the northern ice cap.
In 1912 the Government of Canada dropped the hyphen
in the North-West Territories name to Northwest
Territories. Between 1925 and 1999, the Northwest
Territories measured 3 439 296 km² – larger than
India.
A Northwest Territories sample license plate.Finally,
on April 1, 1999, the eastern three-fifths of the
Northwest Territories (including all of Keewatin
district and much of Mackenzie and Franklin) became
a separate territory called Nunavut.
There was some discussion of changing the name of
the Northwest Territories after the separation of
Nunavut, possibly to a term from an Aboriginal
language. One proposal is "Denendeh" ("our land" in
Dene). The idea is favoured by former premier
Stephen Kakfwi among others, but a poll conducted
prior to division showed strong support for
retaining the name "Northwest Territories". This
name arguably became more appropriate following
division, than it was when the territory extended
far into Canada's northeast. In Inuktitut, the
Northwest Territories are referred to as
(Nunatsiaq), "beautiful land."
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Northwest Territories Statistics
- Square Kilometres: 1,299,070
- Population: 40,309
- Capital: Yellowknife, NT
- Time: West of 102 degrees W Mountain Standard
Time (GMT -8) Daylight Savings Time is from the first
Sunday in April to last Sunday in October.
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Background:
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A
land of vast distances and rich natural resources,
Canada became a self-governing dominion in 1867
while retaining ties to the British crown.
Economically and technologically the nation has
developed in parallel with the US, its neighbor to
the south across an unfortified border. Its
paramount political problem continues to be the
relationship of the province of Quebec, with its
French-speaking residents and unique culture, to the
remainder of the country. |
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Population:
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32,507,874 (July 2004 est.) |
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Languages:
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English 59.3% (official), French 23.2% (official),
other 17.5% |
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Currency:
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Canadian dollar (CAD)
|
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Currency code:
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CAD
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Exchange rates:
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Canadian dollars per US dollar - 1.4 (2003), 1.57
(2002), 1.55 (2001), 1.49 (2000), 1.49 (1999) |
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