Wednesday, 15 July 2015 - 04:00 pm (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: North America / Nordamerika Category/Kategorie: GeneralReading Time: 5minutes
The Northwest Territories (NWT; French: les Territoires du Nord-Ouest, TNO) is a territory of Canada. With a population of 43,500, the Northwest Territories is the most populous territory in Northern Canada. Yellowknife became the territorial capital in 1967, following recommendations by the Carrothers Commission. The Northwest Territories, a portion of the old North-West Territory, entered the Canadian Confederation July 15, 1870, but the current borders were formed April 1, 1999, when the territory was subdivided to create Nunavut to the east, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act. While Nunavut is mostly Arctic tundra, the Northwest Territories has a slightly warmer climate and is mostly boreal forest (taiga), although portions of the territory lie north of the tree line, and its most northern regions form part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The Northwest Territories are bordered by Canada’s two other territories, Nunavut to the east and Yukon to the west, and by the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan to the south.
The present-day territory came under government authority in July 1870, after the Hudson’s Bay Company transferred Rupert’s Land and North-Western Territory to the British Crown, which subsequently transferred them to the government of Canada, giving it the name the North-West Territories. This immense region comprised all of today’s Canada except that which was encompassed within the early signors of Canadian Confederation, that is, British Columbia, early forms of present-day Ontario and Quebec (which encompassed the coast of the Great Lakes, the Saint Lawrence River valley and the southern third of Quebec), the Maritimes (PEI, NS and NB), Newfoundland, the Labrador coast, and the Arctic Islands, except the southern half of Baffin Island (the Arctic Islands remained under direct British claim until 1880). After the 1870 transfer, some of the North-West Territories was whittled away. The province of Manitoba was created on July 15, 1870, at first a tiny square area around Winnipeg, and then enlarged in 1881 to a rectangular region composing the modern province’s south. By the time British Columbia joined Confederation on July 20, 1871, it had already (1866) been granted the portion of North-Western Territory south of 60 degrees north and west of 120 degrees west, an area that comprised most of the Stickeen Territories. In 1882, Regina in the District of Assiniboia became the territorial capital. Alberta and Saskatchewan were separated from the NWT to become provinces in 1905 (Regina became the provincial capital of Saskatchewan).
The NWT’s geological resources include gold, diamonds, natural gas and petroleum. BP is the only oil company currently producing oil in the Territory. NWT diamonds are promoted as an alternative to purchasing blood diamonds. Two of the biggest mineral resource companies in the world, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto mine many of their diamonds from the NWT. In 2010, NWT accounted for 28.5% of Rio Tinto’s total diamond production (3.9 million carats, 17% more than in 2009, from the Diavik Diamond Mine) and 100% of BHP’s (3.05 million carats from the EKATI mine). The Northwest Territories has the highest per capita GDP of all provinces or territories in Canada, C$76,000 in 2009. However, as production at the current mines started to wind down, no new mines opened and the public service shrank, the territory lost 1,200 jobs between November 2013 and November 2014.
