The Northwest Territories in Canada

15 July 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  10 minutes

Northern Lights - Aurora Village © flickr.com - Hideyuki KAMON/cc-by-sa-2.0

Northern Lights – Aurora Village © flickr.com – Hideyuki KAMON/cc-by-sa-2.0

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.   read more…

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