History Made Every Day™

Yellowknife, located on the shores of Great Slave Lake at the mouth of the Yellowknife River, is the capital of Canada's Northwest Territories. The northernmost city in Canada, Yellowknife lies just 318 miles (512 km) south of the Arctic Circle at "the top of the world." Today, about 20,000 people--half the population of the Northwest Territories--call Yellowknife home.

The first residents of the Yellowknife area were the Dogrib and the Yellowknives, a band of Chipewyans who moved into the area in the early 1800s and were the city's namesake. After the decline of the Yellowknives, the land was occupied by the Dogrib and other Chipewyans, who had traditionally hunted in the area. From 1789 to the 1920s, Yellowknife became active in the European fur trade and was the site of a trading post. In 1896, miners on their way to Klondike in the Yukon Territory found gold at Yellowknife Bay, but there was no great "gold rush" at the time because of the area's inaccessibility. White settlement did not begin until 1934, when further gold deposits were discovered. By this time, the advent of air travel made getting to the area easier, and present-day Yellowknife was born. By the late 1930s, Yellowknife was a boomtown, home to three gold mines. The growing city had a population of 1,000 by the end of the decade.

That all changed with the outbreak of World War II. Gold was not essential to the war effort and with most working-age men off fighting overseas, the mines closed. After the war, production resumed at full tilt with the opening of the Giant Yellowknife Mine. Yellowknife was made the capital of the Northwest Territories (NWT) in 1967 and became the first incorporated city in the NWT in 1970.

Yellowknife Today

Gold was the lifeblood of the Yellowknife economy for more than 40 years, but the gold claims eventually petered out--the last gold mine was shuttered in 2004--and, in 1991, diamonds were discovered. That set off the largest staking rush in Canada's history and today the region is known as the "Diamond Capital of North America." The Ekati diamond mine, the first in Canada's history, began production in 1998. A second, Diavik, opened in January 2003. The Snap River Diamond Project, owned by DeBeers, began production in August 2007. DeBeers is also working to develop another new mine, the Guahco Kue.

Thanks in large part to diamond mining, Yellowknifers enjoy the highest per capita household income in Canada, and one of the country's lowest unemployment rates. In addition to the ice road trucking industry, Yellowknife hosts diamond cutting and polishing facilities and is the business service center for diamond mine operations. Natural gas exploration and development is a growing industry. Yellowknife is also the site of the busiest airport in the region.

Visitors to Yellowknife can check out the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, which contains a variety of collections focusing on local history and archeology. Both tourists and locals enjoy the citys annual Caribou Carnival, celebrated at the end of March on the still-frozen Frame Lake to toast the end of winter. The carnival features the Canadian Championship Dog Derby, a three-day, 240km race across Great Slave Lake as well as ugly dog and truck contests and a beard-growing competition, among other amusements. The summertime Festival of the Midnight Sun and the Canadian Midnight Sun Golf Tournament, in which golfers can tee off at midnight, are other popular local events.