The Richardson Mountains, Northwest Territories, Canada

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Northwest Territories

On a planet containing seven billion people, it's difficult to imagine that there are still places as sparsely populated as the Northwest Territories (NWT). A vast swath of boreal forest and Arctic tundra five times the size of the UK, it has a population of a small provincial town. In the 19th century, gold prospectors passed it over as too remote; modern Canadians, if they head north at all, prefer to romanticize about iconic Nunavut or the grandiose Yukon. More people orbit the earth each year than visit lonely Aulavik, one of the territory's four national parks.

Attractions

Must-see attractions

  • Nahanni National Park Reserve

    Nahanni National Park Reserve

    Northwest Territories

    A place of unparalleled natural beauty in the southwestern NWT near the Yukon border, this 30,000-sq-km, Unesco World Heritage national park is bisected…

  • Wood Buffalo National Park

    Wood Buffalo National Park

    Northwest Territories

    Established in 1922 to protect a large, dark and distinctly Northern subspecies of bison, and straddling the Alberta–NWT border, is Wood Buffalo National…

  • Virginia Falls in mist and water mist rainbow at South Nahanni river, Northwest Territories, Canada 636667608 Nahanni River, Nahanni National Park, Wilderness Area, Extreme Terrain, Journey, Adventure, Multi Colored, Nature, Northwest Territories, Canada, Rainbow, River, Park - Man Made Space

    Virginia Falls

    Northwest Territories

    Yes, there is a higher set of falls in British Columbia, but for the sheer gushing power of two mighty torrents of water, falling from a height of 96m …

  • Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre

    Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre

    Yellowknife

    Acting as NWT's historical and cultural archive, this well-laid-out museum overlooks Frame Lake. Expertly assembled displays address natural history,…

  • Aulavik National Park

    Aulavik National Park

    Northwest Territories

    This seldom-visited park has the world's largest concentration of musk ox, as well as tundra and archaeological sites. This is true Arctic wilderness,…

  • Great Slave Lake

    Great Slave Lake

    Yellowknife

    Yellowknife sits on the shores of Great Slave Lake – the 10th largest lake in the world and the deepest in North America. It takes its name from the…

  • Pelican Rapids

    Pelican Rapids

    Northwest Territories

    Twelve kilometers south of Fort Smith, an old road leads east towards the river, with a footpath dipping down to a creek and ascending a bluff overlooking…

  • Pingo Canadian Landmark

    Pingo Canadian Landmark

    Northwest Territories

    The Tuk Peninsula has the world's highest concentration of pingos. Some 1350 of these huge mounds of earth-covered ice, that form only in a permafrost…

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Canoe Canada's wilderness on these iconic waterways

Jan 22, 2020 • 5 min read

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