The
Northwest Territories are part of Canada’s vast, remote north. Most of the territories’ population and commercial activity is based in Yellowknife and around the Great Slave Lake. The Territories consist largely of
wilderness, punctuated in places by human settlements, mainly of
native peoples but also intrepid
adventurers. The Inuit and Dene communities comprise almost 50% of the territories’ population and have existed for hundreds or thousands of years.
In terms of topography, the Northwest Territories are not as barren as one might anticipate.
Thick evergreen
forests and verdant
mountains are a recurrent feature of the landscape.
Sparsely populated, you are more likely to spot a herd of
bison or come across a
grizzly bear than you are to encounter a human. The sheer sum of wildlife in the Northwest Territories is superb. Venturing further north, the territories extend far above the
Arctic Circle - something you might remember when you spot some
polar bears!
Don’t forget to look up at the skies too: the Northwest Territories’ skies contain some of the rarest species of
birds worldwide.
The Northwest Territories are, admittedly, stark in places, but it is an austerity that is tinged with beauty. Surrounded by wildlife, pretty flowers on rolling tundra and the sound of running water through a crystal-clear river, it would be understandable to think that you had stepped back in time.
GeographyThe Northwest Territories stretch from the Mackenzie Mountains on the Yukon border to the open, barren lands to the east, and from the shores and islands of the Arctic Ocean to the woodlands in the south. Canada’s longest river, the Mackenzie, flows 1,480km (920 miles) from Great Slave Lake to its delta on the Beaufort Sea.
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