T is for Territories by Michael Kusugak & Iris Churcher

Author:Michael Kusugak & Iris Churcher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Published: 2013-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Their license plates say, “THE SPECTACULAR NORTHWEST TERRITORIES.” And it is truly spectacular.

When it first joined the Canadian Confederation in 1870, the Northwest Territories (NWT) included all Canadian lands north and west of Manitoba. Since then, parts of the NWT have been whittled away with the creation of British Columbia, Yukon, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Nunavut. But after all that, the NWT is still huge, bigger than Saskatchewan and Alberta combined.

There are approximately 42,000 people in the NWT. About half of them are native people, mostly Dene. In the Arctic Ocean, you will find the communities of Sachs Harbour on Banks Island and Ulukhaktok on Victoria Island.

The Great Bear and Great Slave lakes in the territory are huge. Together, they are bigger than Lake Huron. The Deh-Cho, known as the Mackenzie River in English, is the longest river system in Canada. In Wood Buffalo National Park visitors sometimes have to stop and wait for buffalo to get out of their way. At Nahanni National Park Reserve, you can see Dall sheep, mountain goats, caribou, and all kinds of other animals. Pingos are mounds of earth-covered ice that form when ice heaves the earth up. There is one in the Mackenzie Delta that is 50 metres tall.

The capital city of the NWT is Yellow-knife, where almost half of the population lives. The delicate mountain avens (Dryas octopetala) is its official flower. The gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus), a graceful bird of prey, is its official bird. In 1999 the tamarack (Larix laricina) replaced the jack pine as its official tree. Its official mineral is gold, of course. Gold was what attracted southern people to Yellowknife.

People from all over the world go to Yellowknife just to see the northern lights (aurora borealis), that natural phenomenon where bands of colored lights are sometimes visible in the night sky.

N is for the Northwest Territories

You want to see some northern lights and other most amazing sights? The NWT is the place to be, our anthem’s “true north strong and free.”

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