History of Northwest Territories capital cities that have served as home for the Legislative Assembly of Northwest Territories, the legislative branch of Northwest Territories government. In Canada, it is customary for provincial and territorial level government to have the administrative centre of the civil service in the same city as the legislative branch. The Northwest Territories, however, had separate administrative and legislative capitals officially exist between 1911 and 1967. This is the only province or territory in Canadian history to have had such an arrangement. The Government of Canada purchased the North-Western Territory and Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1868, under the terms
Yellowknife limited to the Kam Lake and airport subdivisions. Jolliffe Island sits in Yellowknife Bay and is public land under the jurisdiction of the City of Yellowknife after a land purchase when Imperial Oil vacated the site. The island is surrounded by a community of houseboats who have been living off the grid since 1978. Their relationship with the city is complex and often strained as the houseboats are popular with sightseers, but at the same time they live outside of the city's tax jurisdiction while using city services leading to lawsuits and tensions with the City of Yellowknife. Yellowknife has