Northwest Territories Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (NT or NWT; French: "les Territoires du Nord-Ouest", "TNO"; Athabaskan languages: "Denendeh"; Inuinnaqtun: "Nunatsiaq"; Inuktitut: ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊᖅ) is a federal territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2011 population of 41,462, it is the second-largest and the most populous of the three territories in Northern Canada. Its estimated population as of 2016 is 44,291. Yellowknife became the territorial capital in 1967, following recommendations by the Carrothers Commission. The Northwest Territories, a portion of the old North-Western Territory, entered the Canadian Confederation on July 15, 1870, but the current borders were formed on
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