The Northwest Territories: A Little North of Ordinary

Family life is enjoyed in all parts of our Country

After visiting little Prince Edward Island, we’re stretching our legs this week. The Northwest Territories span an immense 1.3 million square kilometres.  That is an area larger than France and Spain combined, but it has an estimated population of just 45,904 people in July 2026. That’s a small city’s population spread across a vast stretch of Canada. Borrowing a cup of sugar might take some advance planning.

From a distance, we might picture snow, wilderness, and northern lights. Look a little closer, though, and we find children heading to school, musicians tuning their instruments, nurses caring for neighbours, and families wondering what to make for supper.

Familiar Canadian life—with some rather extraordinary surroundings.

The people inside that enormous landscape

Dene, Inuvialuit, and Métis peoples are central to the territory’s story, alongside people who have made their homes here from elsewhere in Canada and around the world. The Northwest Territories recognizes 11 official languages: nine Indigenous languages, plus English and French. There are many ways to express belonging here.

Yellowknife, the capital, is home to roughly half the population. The territory is also relatively young, with an average age of 37.5 years in July 2026. Deep cultural roots and a younger generation helping shape what comes next make an interesting combination.

Yellowknife: city life with a northern accent

Yellowknife has schools, public buses, a library, recreation facilities, businesses, and a hospital. People go to work, take children to activities, and squeeze errands into their day. This small capital provides many services we might expect in a much larger city.

Then we reach Old Town, and its particular character comes into view. Log cabins stand near modern homes, floatplanes come and go, and colourful houseboats sit offshore. Some residents live aboard year-round, paddling to shore in summer and travelling across the ice in winter. “How was your commute?” could produce quite a conversation.

Beyond the capital, daily life varies enormously. A highway-connected town and a remote fly-in community face very different practical realities. Distance influences the choices people have, the services they can reach, and the planning behind an ordinary purchase.

When winter builds the road

Yellowknife has an all-season road connection to southern Canada. Elsewhere, winter roads cross frozen ground, lakes, and rivers, creating temporary connections to communities without year-round road access. The territorial government describes a winter-road network serving nine remote communities and carrying essentials such as heating fuel, groceries, and building materials.

For those communities, winter can actually make transportation easier. The cold builds a road where there was no road before.

Summer supplies may arrive by barge, while aircraft carry passengers and freight. But the seasons do not always cooperate. Low water has disrupted Mackenzie River barging, leaving affected communities facing expensive air freight or a wait for winter-road deliveries.

Imagine planning a renovation around a barge—or discovering that your building supplies must now fly. It gives a different meaning to “delivery charges extra.”

School days: chemistry, computers, and Elders

The Northwest Territories has 49 schools. Yellowknife offers public, Catholic, and French-language schooling, while smaller communities have fewer choices of schools and courses.

Northern Distance Learning helps bridge that gap. Students attend live online classes with certified teachers, supported by staff in their own schools. Courses include chemistry, physics, calculus, photography, and entrepreneurship. A small local enrolment need not mean giving up a subject that could open a door later.

Other lessons take students beyond the classroom. The Elders in Schools program brings language, experience, and traditional knowledge into education. Cultural learning can include fishing, berry picking, preparing food, beading, drumming, and spending time on the land.

There is something valuable in children learning how to move forward while staying connected to where they come from.

When care means leaving home

Here in Nova Scotia, we understand the difficulty of finding a family doctor. In the Northwest Territories, geography adds another layer.

Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife is the territory’s largest hospital and its main centre for acute care. Inuvik Regional Hospital serves the northern region, and Hay River’s regional health centre also provides hospital care. These facilities are part of a wider network of community health centres.

In many smaller communities, nurses are the main local care providers, supported by physicians or nurse practitioners by telephone or in person. Their responsibilities range from everyday illnesses and chronic conditions to prenatal care and emergencies. A resident doctor is not something every community has.

Recruiting and keeping professionals remains an ongoing task. Permanent staff are supplemented by temporary relief professionals, known as locums. Specialized treatment may require travel to Yellowknife or Edmonton, while serious emergencies in remote locations can require an air ambulance.

For families, care can therefore involve flights, time away from work, arrangements for children, and being away from familiar surroundings when comfort matters most.

Come hungry

Food brings us back to the land—and to one another.

Depending on the region and season, northern food traditions include freshly caught whitefish, Arctic char, game, and gathered berries. Add warm bannock, perhaps with butter and jam, and there is plenty to tempt us to pull up a chair. Different communities have their own traditions, shaped by the landscapes and knowledge that sustain them.

Northern gardening deserves applause, too. Greenhouses and small farms produce vegetables during the growing season, with local markets offering homegrown potatoes, fresh produce, and baking. Those long summer days certainly encourage making the most of the season.

Everything brought in from elsewhere has a journey behind it. Transportation costs help explain why northern grocery bills can make even those of us grumbling at Maritime checkout counters pause for thought.

And when the work is done—there is music

Long northern winters have certainly not silenced the entertainment calendar.

Yellowknife’s Northern Arts and Cultural Centre hosts local and visiting performers, with music, theatre, and dance. Film festivals and community arts events add to the mix. There is room for a night at the theatre and a pair of very sensible winter boots.

In July, Folk on the Rocks brings northern musicians and performers from elsewhere in Canada to the shores of Long Lake. Its music reaches well beyond traditional folk, and its closing drum dance, led by the Yellowknives Dene Drummers, brings people together in a memorable celebration.

In March, the Snowkings’ Winter Festival takes the celebration into a huge snow castle on Great Slave Lake, complete with carved features, ice windows, live music, and family activities. Some communities build a concert hall. Yellowknife also builds one that melts.

Farther north, Inuvik’s Muskrat Jamboree welcomes spring with community feasts, drumming, dog races, and traditional skills competitions. Fiddle and guitar music keep dancers moving, while ice chiselling and harpoon throwing offer something different from the usual Saturday afternoon.

Across the territory, distinct drumming, dancing, and fiddling traditions carry history forward. Music is part of how communities celebrate who they are.

The challenges beneath the beauty

A fuller picture also leaves room for difficult realities.

The RCMP’s published overview lists 21 detachments, including 11 in remote fly-in communities. Policing such an enormous area brings challenges of distance, transportation, and access to additional help.

Police-reported crime is substantially above the Canadian average. In 2025, the territory’s Crime Severity Index was 485.9, compared with 75.01 nationally, although its index fell 7.5% from the previous year. This measure combines the volume and seriousness of reported offences; it is not an individual’s likelihood of becoming a victim, and territory-wide figures do not describe every community equally.

Environmental pressures are also changing everyday life. Thawing permafrost affects buildings and roads, changing ice conditions complicate travel, and erosion and wildfires threaten communities. In 2023, wildfires forced approximately two-thirds of the territory’s population to evacuate.

Resilience is a lovely word. Here, it involves practical work: preparing, adapting, rebuilding, and helping neighbours through the next difficult stretch.

Room to wonder—and a future to shape

There is much worth protecting. In Nahanni National Park Reserve, Virginia Falls plunges from nearly twice the height of Niagara Falls. In Inuvik, the summer sun stays above the horizon for roughly eight weeks. Nature does seem to enjoy making a grand gesture here.

The territory is also navigating economic change as diamond mines that supported livelihoods for decades reach the end of their productive lives. What comes next matters deeply to workers, businesses, and families.

For a stronger Canada to mean something here, it needs to reach everyday life: dependable transportation, suitable housing, reliable care, and opportunities that allow people to build a future in their own communities. The knowledge and priorities of northern residents belong at the centre of that work.

What stays with us after this visit north is the thought of people making a home in such an extraordinary place: an Elder sharing a story with children, a nurse caring for a familiar face, neighbours gathering around food and music after a difficult season. There is much to admire in the landscape, but the warmth comes from the people and the care they put into their lives together. Across all those miles, their hopes feel close to our own—to see our children thrive, to know someone will be there when we need them, and to feel that we belong.

A little north of ordinary, perhaps, but very close to the heart.