Attractions

Yukon

The river that flows into the Bering Strait, after travelling almost 3,200 km through the Yukon and Alaska, gave its name to the territory: Aboriginals called it Yukon, the "great river." The Yukon territory is characterized by many mountain chains, including Mount Logan, whose peak reaches an altitude of 6,050 m, making it the highest in Canada.

Whitehorse

Whitehorse, the Yukon territory's capital, was founded as a natural upstream terminal on the Yukon River. Indeed, by the end of 19th century, gold prospectors travelling on their way to the Klondike stopped here before transferring their merchandise onto boats or sleighs, depending on the season. Today, the Alaska and Klondike highways pass through the city.

Whitehorse's museums and interpretive centres honour the great names and events of Yukon's history. Among these, an archaeology and paleontology museum is mainly devoted to the last ice age, when the Yukon and Alaskan territories were still linked to Asia by a land bridge called Beringia.

Dawson

On August 16, 1896, two members of the Tagish First Nation and an American struck gold near the Klondike River. The prospectors staked their claim on the following day, a date that will forever be known in the collective memory of Yukon residents as the "Discovery Day." Over the years, the region has supplied the equivalent of $1 billion worth of the yellow metal: definitely a great gold rush.

Today, Dawson lives in the memory of its golden days. The place still has wooden sidewalks, unpaved roads and Western building facades. Thus, the town itself, the rivers, the gold mines and a trip up the Midnight Dome are all a must during a visit to Dawson, not to mention the replicas of the cabins that belonged to poet Robert Service and American novelist Jack London.

Northwest Territories

The Northwest Territories, a land of adventure, extremes and challenges, offer a wealth of attractions to anyone who loves outdoor activities and is fascinated by unspoiled wilderness and the ancestral traditions of those who made their home here. The place for wildlife preservation, the Northwest Territories also boast many national parks.

Yellowknife

At first glance, Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories, is a small town made up of a few skyscrapers and some little wooden houses set against a vast backdrop of rocks, lakes and twisted trees. A major ethnological research centre, open to visitors, traces the colonization of the Northwest Territories and explains the Déné and Inuit ways of life.

The Old Town area, located on a peninsula in Yellowknife Bay, looks out on Latham Island. This site was originally chosen by the first gold prospectors who arrived in the region. Outcrops of the block of granite on which the new town was erected are visible all over, lending the town a very distinctive, desert-like atmosphere.

Inuvik

Redesigned in 1954, Inuvik became the first community north of the Arctic Circle to be equipped with all the sanitation facilities of a modern town. The permafrost made this an arduous task: the houses are all built on stilts and amazing overhead metal conduits, used to carry drinking water and waste water, link homes, businesses and public buildings.

Dempster Highway, which starts in the Yukon south of Dawson, leads to Inuvik. A true feast for the eyes, this road winds through mountains and a desert-like tundra. Inuvik is the main town in the Arctic region. The best-known building in the city is definitely its igloo-shaped church. The city is also home to an amazing 18-hole golf course.

Nunavut

The home of the Inuit ("the people"), their ancestors and their predecessors for the last 5,000 years, Nunavut's landscape ranges from rugged mountains and glaciers in the northeast, to low, sandy marshes, muskeg and long tidal flats in the southwest. The Arctic Circle passes through the sixth-largest island in the world, Baffin Island, which accounts for more than a quarter of Nunavut's territory.

Iqaluit

qaluit, the capital of Nunavut, is the gateway to the Arctic for anyone who wishes to explore the little communities on Baffin Island. Within the city, a house built by the Hudson's Bay Company, now restored, displays a collection of artifacts from the region's oldest settlements.

Some kilometres west of Iqaluit, a little island accessible only by boat, formerly inhabited by the Thule, is now home to a historic park. Archaeological excavations have uncovered many tools and bones dating back 2,600 years. Visitors can stroll along little trails.

Pond Inlet

Wonderfully situated on the shores of Eclipse Sound on northern Baffin Island, Pond Inlet faces the glaciers and rugged mountains of Bylot Island. Present-day Inuit live on north Baffin Island and surrounding islands as did their Dorset and Thule ancestors. The area attracted Scottish whalers during the latter half of the 19th century.

In the 1920s, the Inuit congregated in the area. Located within a natural park, the community of Pond Inlet is, along with Arctic Bay to the west, the departure point for excursions on the surrounding land. An interpretive centre provides cultural events and walking tours of the community.

Nunavik

The rough beauty of the barren landscape of Nunavik, its harsh winter climate and its unique tundra vegetation giving way to taiga and then boreal forest, make for a region that differs completely from the rest of Québec. This territory is largely administered by the Inuit themselves. The Inuktitut name Nunavik, adopted in 1986, means "place to live."

Kuujjuaq

Situated some 1,300 km north of Québec City, and the administrative, economic and political capital of Nunavik, Kuujjuaq (Inuktitut for "big river") stretches over flat sandy land on the west shore of the Koksoak River, 50 km upstream from its mouth on Ungava Bay. Kuujjuaq is the largest Inuit community in Québec.

Once known as Fort Chimo, a 19th and early 20th-century prosperous Hudson's Bay Company fur-trading post, Kuujjuaq boasts a major natural attraction: the Koksoak River. One of the marvels of the area, the river adds a unique and very picturesque dimension to Kuujjuaq's setting, and its tides shape the fascinatingly beautiful landscapes.

Pingaluit National Park

In 2003, the Québec government finally recognized the New Quebec Crater's importance to the Inuit, officially designating it by its rightful Inuit-language name, Pingaluit, which means "where the land rises," and creating the Pingaluit National Park. As a prelude to an autonomous government in Nunavik, the Québec government has entrusted the management of the park to the Inuit.

The Pingaluit Crater, a circular depression measuring 3 km in diameter and more than 400 m deep, was created by the impact of a huge meteorite roughly 1.5 million years ago. Purportedly the deepest in North America, the lake that formed within the crater is made up of fresh water of unmatched purity, exclusively supplied by rainwater and melting snow.

Where on earth

The Rocky Mountains cover the largest part of the Yukon's territory (480,000 km²), located north of British Columbia; the Northwest Territories (1,299,000 km²) stretch out between the Yukon and Nunavut (1,994,000 km²) towards the east. The Nunavik region (500,000 km²), a part of the province of Québec, is situated north of the 55th parallel.