🇨🇦 Canada · Atlantic Coast and the North
Yellowknife is the gateway to Canada's deep north: the capital of the Northwest Territories, a small, hardy city on the shore of the immense Great Slave Lake, deep in the Subarctic. Here, far from the big cities of the south, the traveler steps into a different world: endless lakes, boreal forest, the age-old rock of the Canadian Shield, extreme winters, the midnight sun in summer and, above all, the most sought-after show in the sky: the northern lights.
Yellowknife is, in fact, one of the best places on the planet to see the aurora borealis. Its position under the 'auroral oval', its clear dark skies and its dry climate mean that in the right seasons (fall and winter) the odds of catching the dance of green, pink and violet light in the night sky are very high. Chasing the aurora is the great experience that pulls travelers from all over the world, especially from Asia, to this remote corner. But the city offers more: a history tied to gold and diamonds, a picturesque Old Town on the lakeshore, a strong Indigenous (Dene) presence and access to wild arctic nature.
This guide covers the essentials of Yellowknife with a practical, friendly eye: how to chase the northern lights, enjoy the experiences of the north (dog sledding, fishing, wildlife), explore the city and its Old Town, learn about northern culture and live both the extreme winter and the midnight sun of summer. It is a destination for adventurers and dreamers, the place where Canada turns truly arctic and the sky lights up with color.
The Yellowknife region, on the shore of Great Slave Lake, has for thousands of years been the territory of the Dene peoples, in particular the Yellowknives Dene (Wıìlıìdeh), from whom the city takes its name. The name 'Yellowknife' comes from the copper tools and knives (yellowish in color) this people used, made from deposits in the region. The Dene lived on hunting (caribou), fishing and life around the lakes and the boreal forest. The European presence arrived with the fur trade, but the modern city was born all at once in the 1930s for one concrete reason: gold. The discovery of gold in the area, around 1934-1936, set off a rush that led to the founding of the settlement of Yellowknife as a mining camp, which grew around the gold mines (such as the Con Mine and the Giant Mine) on the lakeshore. The old core from that era is today the Old Town. For decades, Yellowknife's economy revolved around gold mining. In 1967 Yellowknife was designated capital of the Northwest Territories, which also made it the administrative and government centre of the vast territory. The gold mines closed one by one over time, but at the end of the 20th century a new source of wealth transformed the region: the discovery of diamonds in the Northwest Territories (in the nineties) turned Canada into a major world diamond producer, and Yellowknife into the centre of that industry ('the diamond capital of North America'). In recent decades, aurora tourism has also grown enormously, becoming an economic pillar and the source of the city's international fame. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The vast Arctic and subarctic territory of the Mackenzie: land of the Dene and the Inuvialuit, of Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake, of diamond mining and of the wild Nahanni river.
Read the history of Northwest Territories →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before any city existed, the region on the shore of Great Slave Lake was, for thousands of years, the territory of the Dene peoples, the ancestral inhabitants of much of Canada's subarctic northwest. These peoples lived on hunting (caribou above all, essential to their survival), fishing in the countless lakes and rivers, and gathering, in a semi-nomadic way of life perfectly adapted to an environment as extreme as it was rich, between boreal forest, tundra and great lakes.
Among the Dene peoples of the area were the Yellowknives Dene (also known as Wıìlıìdeh), from whom the city takes its name directly. The name 'Yellowknife' comes from the tools and knives this people made from copper, a yellowish metal they got from deposits in the region. So the name of the capital of the Northwest Territories honors a Dene people and their copper-working culture.
The Dene had a deep knowledge of the territory, of its routes, its animals and its seasons, and a rich spiritual and social culture. The arrival of the Europeans — first with the fur trade, and much later with mining — transformed their world. Today the Dene peoples remain a fundamental part of the Northwest Territories and of the Yellowknife region, and their culture, their history and their ancestral relationship with this land are recognized as an essential layer of the place. The city sits on traditional Dene territory.
The first European presence in the Great Slave Lake region arrived, as in so many parts of northern and western Canada, with the fur trade. From the 18th century and above all the 19th, the big fur companies (such as the Hudson's Bay Company) pushed their networks into the deep north, setting up trading posts along the rivers and lakes and exchanging goods with the Dene peoples for furs, beaver above all.
Explorers and traders travelled these vast subarctic lands, mapping the great lakes and rivers (such as the Mackenzie, the longest river in Canada, which flows out of Great Slave Lake) in their search for routes and resources. But unlike other regions, the far north remained for a long time a remote territory, barely settled by Europeans, dominated by the immensity of nature, by the Indigenous peoples and by the harshness of the subarctic climate. There were no big colonial settlements or cities here.
Through most of the 19th century and the start of the 20th, the region of today's Yellowknife stayed that way: Dene territory and fur trade country, far from the population centres of southern Canada, reachable only by water and, later, by air. The city's real birth would not come until the 20th century, and not because of furs but because of a precious metal that would change the destiny of the place: gold.
Modern Yellowknife was born all at once, in the 1930s, thanks to gold. The discovery of gold in the area, around 1934-1936, in the middle of the Great Depression, set off a rush that drew prospectors, miners and adventurers to the remote north. On the shore of Great Slave Lake, where before there had been only Dene territory and wilderness, a mining camp appeared that was the seed of the city.
That pioneer settlement, thrown up in a hurry with wooden houses beside the lake, was the origin of today's Old Town, which still keeps the bohemian, adventurous spirit of those first years. With the development of the area's gold mines — the most important being the Con Mine and the Giant Mine — Yellowknife grew and settled in as a mining town. Gold was, for decades, the engine of its economy and the reason it existed.
Life in that early Yellowknife was hard and frontier-rough: extreme isolation (reachable above all by air and, historically, by water), a brutal climate, the long winter nights. Floatplanes became vital for connecting the city with the south and with the remote communities, and bush pilots became legendary figures of the north (honored today at the Bush Pilot's Monument in the Old Town). And so, out of a gold prospectors' camp in the middle of subarctic nowhere, the only city in the Northwest Territories took shape.
As Yellowknife grew and settled in as the region's main population centre, it gained importance beyond mining. The political milestone came in 1967, when Yellowknife was designated capital of the Northwest Territories. Until then, this vast territory in northern Canada had largely been administered from the south (from Ottawa), but moving the capital to Yellowknife reflected a decision to govern the north from the north itself.
Becoming the capital transformed Yellowknife: on top of being a mining town, it became the administrative, political and service centre of the Northwest Territories, an immense territory (one of the largest and least populated in Canada). The territorial government institutions, the public services and the infrastructure of a capital were set up, which diversified its economy and drew people in. Yellowknife became the only city proper in the Northwest Territories and its heart.
The Northwest Territories also have one particularity: a population with a large share of Indigenous peoples (Dene, Inuit, Métis) and a growing commitment to recognizing their rights, languages and cultures (the territory has several official languages, many of them Indigenous). Yellowknife, as the capital, is the stage for that multicultural reality of the north. The city, born of gold, was thus also becoming the seat of government of a vast and singular arctic and subarctic territory.
For much of the 20th century, Yellowknife's economy depended on the gold from its mines. But over time the gold mines aged and closed (the Giant Mine and the Con Mine shut down, leaving, in the Giant's case, a serious environmental problem from toxic arsenic waste, whose cleanup is a challenge that is still going on). The end of gold could have been the city's decline, but the fate of the north turned again thanks to another treasure underground: diamonds.
In the 1990s, major diamond deposits were discovered in the Northwest Territories, north of Yellowknife. That was a revolution: within a few years it turned Canada into one of the largest diamond producers in the world, and Yellowknife into the centre of that new industry. Big diamond mines opened in the region, and the city declared itself 'the diamond capital of North America'. The local economy came back to life around this new resource, alongside the territorial government.
Meanwhile, from the end of the 20th century and the start of the 21st, a third economic pillar grew that would give Yellowknife worldwide fame: aurora tourism. The extraordinary quality of its skies for watching the northern lights began drawing a growing number of visitors from all over the world (especially from Asia), making aurora chasing a key sector. So the city went from gold to diamonds to the aurora, reinventing itself again and again without ever ceasing to be the heart of the north.
Today's Yellowknife is a small but singular and resilient city: the capital of the Northwest Territories, the political, economic and service centre of the Canadian north, and a world-famous destination thanks to the northern lights. With around 20,000 people, it is the only city in the territory, a point of settlement and connection in the middle of a subarctic immensity of lakes, boreal forest and Canadian Shield rock.
Its economy today combines the territorial government, diamond mining (with Yellowknife as the base of that industry) and, increasingly, tourism. Aurora tourism has become a pillar and its great international signature: every fall and winter, travelers from all over the world (with a particularly strong flow from Asian countries) arrive in Yellowknife drawn by the promise of seeing the northern lights dance in its dark, clear skies, one of the best natural shows on the planet. Add to that the experiences of the north (dog sledding, fishing, nature) and, in summer, the midnight sun.
Yellowknife is also the stage for the multicultural reality of the north: a city where the legacy of the gold pioneers, the culture of the Dene peoples (and other northern peoples) and a community that is diverse and cosmopolitan for its size all live side by side. For the traveler, Yellowknife is the gateway to arctic and subarctic Canada: the place where the country turns truly remote, wild and extreme, and where the night sky hands out, on the lucky nights, one of the most magical shows in nature. It is a destination for adventurers, dreamers and aurora chasers, in the heart of Canada's deep north.