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Yellowknife (Northwest Territories)
I INTRODUCTION
Yellowknife (Northwest Territories), city, capital of the Northwest Territories, Canada. Yellowknife is an important mining center and a service depot for the Mackenzie River valley. It is by far the largest settlement, and the only incorporated city, in the Northwest Territories.
Located on Yellowknife Bay (an arm of Great Slave Lake) in the Fort Smith Region of the territory, Yellowknife is isolated from the rest of Canada. The nearest major city, Edmonton, Alberta, is almost 1000 km (620 mi) to the south. The city is situated on a starkly beautiful landscape dominated by the rocky terrain of the Canadian Shield. The climate is marked by long, sunny summer days and a dark, often bitterly cold winter. The average daily temperature range is 12 to 21 C (54 to 69 F) in July and -32 to -24 C (-26 to -11 F) in January. The average annual precipitation is 267 mm (10.5 in).
II PEOPLE
Yellowknife has grown steadily in recent decades, from 5,867 people in 1971 to 15,179 in 1991. According to the 2001 census, the city's population was 16,541.
About 17 percent of the population is indigenous, representing both Dene (Athapaskan-speaking) and Métis groups in the Mackenzie Valley. Nonindigenous people in Yellowknife, mostly of British or French descent, have historically been very transient, with sizable shifts in population tied to changes in mining and mineral exploration activities.
III CITY LANDSCAPE
Yellowknife covers a land area of 102 sq km (40 sq mi) and contains a mixture of old and new sites. Old Yellowknife, the original town site on Latham Island in Yellowknife Bay, is connected to the mainland by an automobile bridge. It has a number of log cabins and other rough buildings from the city's early years, the 1930s and 1940s. Nearby on the island is the Dene village of Ndilo. Because the original town site could not contain the population drawn by the mining boom after World War II (1939-1945), a new settlement was begun on the mainland in the late 1940s. Modern buildings dominate the downtown core of the new city and include government offices, hotels, and retail outlets. Most residents live in housing developments and apartments similar to those of southern Canada.
Yellowknife offers residents a range of recreational facilities, including two arenas, an indoor swimming pool, a curling club, a golf club, and a public library. The most important public buildings are the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre—a cultural complex housing a museum, the territorial archives, and other heritage displays—and the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre, a performing arts center. Higher education is provided at a campus of College Aurora (1995), originally established as a campus of Arctic College in the mid-1980s. The city hosts a variety of annual events, including the Caribou Carnival and Canadian Championship Dog Derby, a festival celebrating the end of winter, usually held in late March; the Annual Midnight Classic Golf Tournament, held in June; and the Folk on the Rocks concert, held in midsummer.
IV ECONOMY
Yellowknife's economy is based largely on the administration of government services, and the city contains a number of territorial and federal government offices. Mining is the second largest employer in Yellowknife, and the city has two operating gold mines. Labor conflicts in the mines have caused difficulties in the 1990s. A long strike at the Royal Oak mine turned violent when strikebreakers were brought in. Several of them were killed in an explosion set by one of the strikers.
The discovery of diamonds in 1991 near Lac de Gras, about 300 km (about 190 mi) northeast of Yellowknife sparked a “diamond rush” that resulted in one of largest mineral staking rushes in North American history. Much of exploration activity was centered around Yellowknife. In 1998 the Ekati diamond mine at Lac de Gras opened, creating more than 1,000 new jobs in the region. In 2003 a second large diamond mine near Lac de Gras began production. Yellowknife officials have made other efforts to diversify the economy, particularly through the promotion of tourism, and the city has had some success promoting itself as a site for observing the aurora borealis (northern lights).
A paved road, the Mackenzie Highway, connects Yellowknife with Edmonton in southern Canada. The city loses its road access twice a year—during the fall freeze-up and the spring breakup—when the ferry across the Mackenzie River at Fort Providence shuts down for as long as three weeks. Between those events, the ice is thick enough to drive across. To make it even thicker, water is pumped from the river onto the traffic lanes until it forms a very strong “ice bridge.”
The city is a major hub for air travel in northern Canada, with daily connections to Edmonton and Winnipeg, Manitoba, and scheduled service to the western and eastern Arctic. There is also regular air service to Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territory. The Yellowknife airport accounts for about 90 percent of all air travel in the Northwest Territories.
V GOVERNMENT
The first municipal government of Yellowknife was established in 1940. The city is governed according to a mayor-council system, with the mayor and the eight council members each elected to three-year terms. City officials in Yellowknife have had to tackle a variety of challenges, including the upgrading of Old Yellowknife, the pressures of rapid economic and population growth, and labor issues related to the mining industry.
As territorial capital since 1967, Yellowknife has had access to federal and territorial funds that have enabled it to build an impressive set of recreational and community facilities. However, funding is expected to decline after 1999, when the eastern part of the Northwest Territories is due to split off and become the new territory of Nunavut. Much of Yellowknife's administrative activity will shift to Nunavut's capital, the town of Iqaluit.
VI CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
Yellowknife is struggling with the challenges posed by its geographic isolation, harsh climate, and ethnic diversity. Many of the city's nonindigenous residents come only to make short-term profits or wages and do not remain long; their high turnover has made for community instability. There are also tensions between the newcomers, especially those involved in mining and resource development, and the Dene and Métis, who have begun to assert their land claims and other political rights.
Another serious issue in Yellowknife is the high cost of living. Because much of the city's resources must be imported from the south, self-sufficiency has been hard to achieve. The construction of a dam on the nearby Snare River in 1948 provided greatly needed electricity, but most other vital supplies—including food and fuel—have to be imported from southern Canada at considerable cost and delay. Local wages have often failed to keep up with living costs.
VII HISTORY
Indigenous nations have lived around Yellowknife Bay for thousands of years. The historic occupants were the Athapaskan-speaking Dogrib people, hunters of caribou. The Dogrib were displaced briefly in the early 19th century by the Yellowknife band of the Chipewyan nation, who moved into the area to participate in the fur trade. The bay, and eventually the city, were named for the Yellowknife band, whose name is believed to derive from their yellow knife blades hammered out of native copper.
Scottish-born Canadian fur trader and explorer Sir Alexander Mackenzie came into the area in 1789, traveling down the river that now bears his name. His firm, the North West Company, operated a fur-trading post at Fort Providence near the western shore of Great Slave Lake until the 1820s. The area attracted outside interest again in the late 1890s when prospectors discovered gold there. However, the deposits were not extensive enough to spark serious mining activities.
In the 1930s the advent of aircraft that could fly into remote areas, and renewed interest in northern minerals, brought prospectors back to the Mackenzie Valley. When a large supply of gold-bearing deposits was found on Yellowknife Bay in 1933, miners headed for it. The Yellowknife community developed in 1935 around three gold mines—the Con, the Negus, and the Giant. Mining operations virtually stopped during World War II but picked up again after the war. Yellowknife was named the territorial capital in 1967, and its new role as administrative center provided an economic counterbalance to the mining industry. In 1970 Yellowknife was incorporated as a city.
In 1991 diamond deposits were discovered near the city, opening new opportunities for economic growth. Another recent development is the settlement of land claims of indigenous peoples in the Mackenzie Valley. Resource development in the area, which was stalled pending the settlement, is expected to pick up and thereby spur additional mining activity.
Contributed By:Kenneth S. Coates
