Sunday, December 17, 2006

Northwest Territories

The Northwest Territories (NWT; French, les Territoires du Nord-Ouest) is a territory of Canada.

Located in northern Canada, it is east of Yukon, west and south of Nunavut (Canada's two other territories), and north of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. It has an area of 1,171,918 square kilometres and a population of 41,861 as of July 1, 2006. Its capital has been Yellowknife since 1967.

Geographical features include the vast Great Bear and Great Slave Lakes, as well as the immense Mackenzie River and the canyons of the Nahanni River, a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. Territorial islands in the Arctic Archipelago include Banks Island, Parry Peninsula, Prince Patrick Island, and parts of Victoria Island and Melville Island. The highest point is Mount Nirvana near the border with Yukon at elevation 2773 m (9098 ft).

The present-day territory was created in June 1870, when the Hudson's Bay Company transferred Rupert's Land and North-Western Territory to the government of Canada. This immense region comprised all of modern Canada except British Columbia, the coast of the Great Lakes, the Saint Lawrence River valley and the southern third of Quebec, the Maritimes, Newfoundland, and the Labrador coast. It also excluded the Arctic Islands except the southern half of Baffin Island; these remained under direct British rule until 1880.

The name of the territory is traced to North-Western Territory, a region named for the geographical location relative to Rupert's Land.

After the transfer, the territories were gradually whittled away. The province of Manitoba was created on 15 July 1870, a tiny square around Winnipeg, and then enlarged in 1881 to a square region composing the modern province's south. By the time British Columbia joined confederation on 20 July 1871, it had already (1866) been granted the portion of North-Western Territory south of 60 degrees north and west of 120 degrees west. In 1882 Regina in the then-District of Assiniboia became the territorial capital; after Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces in 1905, Regina became the provincial capital of the new province of Saskatchewan.

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