What is Yellowknife?

Yellowknife is the capital and largest city of the Northwest Territories, with a population of about 21,000 (about half of all NWT residents). The city is on the north shore of Great Slave Lake on the Canadian Shield, about 400 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle. Yellowknife has been the territorial capital since 1967, when the federal government moved the Northwest Territories administration from Ottawa to Yellowknife and established the territorial Legislative Assembly.

Yellowknife was founded in 1934 after gold was discovered on the shores of Great Slave Lake. The Giant Mine (1948 to 2004) and the Con Mine (1938 to 2003) produced about 14 million ounces of gold during their operating lives. Both mines closed after gold prices and ore grades fell, but the Giant Mine site left about 237,000 tonnes of arsenic trioxide stored underground, which the federal government is freezing in place permanently at an estimated cost of about $1 billion. The city's name comes from the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, named by early European traders for the copper knives the Dene traditionally used.

Yellowknife reinvented itself as a diamond city after diamonds were discovered in the Lac de Gras area about 300 kilometres northeast of the city in 1991. The Ekati mine (opened 1998), the Diavik mine (2003 to 2025), and the Gahcho Kue mine (2016) are all flown in and out of Yellowknife. The city is the principal logistics hub for the Canadian diamond industry, with cutting and polishing facilities established under the Approved Northwest Territories Diamonds programme. Tourism, government, and Indigenous services round out the city's economy.

Yellowknife is one of the best places in the world to view the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights), with about 240 viewing nights per year and minimal light pollution outside the city. The city is at latitude 62.45 north, near the auroral oval. Aurora tourism brings about 60,000 visitors a year, primarily from Japan, China, and other Asian markets. The Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly Building (an architectural showcase that opened in 1993), and the Northland Trailer Park (the largest single concentration of houseboats in Canada) are the city's principal landmarks. Yellowknife became known nationally through the reality television series Ice Road Truckers (2007 to 2017), which followed truckers on the seasonal Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road that supplies the diamond mines.