The capital of the Northwest Territories and the most northerly city in Canada, Yellowknife lies on the north shore of Great Slave Lake. The site was originally occupied by the Dogrib and Yellowknives (Chipewyan) Dene peoples, and whites didn't settle there until 1934, following the discovery of gold on the lakeshores.
Mirimar Con and Giant Yellowknife gold mines defined the community for 40 years, but today Yellowknife styles itself as Canada's diamond capital. Gold played out just as geologists traced a trail of micro diamonds to kimberlite pipes out on the tundra. As the seat of government, the city is at the center of a transportation network that connects communities across the Arctic.
Most of the old gold-boom vestiges are gone -- the bordellos, gambling dens, log-cabin banks, and never-closing bars are merely memories now. But the original Old Town is there, a crazy tangle of wooden shacks hugging the lakeshore rocks, surrounded by small commercial airlines that supply mining camps and transport hunters and fishermen to wilderness lodges -- on floats in summer, on skis in winter.
Yellowknife is a vibrant, youthful place, made expensive by isolation and high salaries paid to transient young professionals and local entrepreneurs who pay big-city prices for homes. A significant portion of Yellowknife consists of people in their late 20s and 30s. Yellowknife attracts young people just out of college looking for high-paying public-sector jobs, wilderness recreation, and the adventure of living in the Arctic. After a few years, however, many of them head back south to warmer climes. Yellowknife is also the center for a number of outlying Dene communities, which roots the city in a more long-standing traditional culture.
People are very friendly and outgoing and seem genuinely glad to see you. The party scene here is just about what you'd expect in a town surrounded by Dene villages and filled with geologists and young bureaucrats. There's a more dynamic nightlife here than the size of the population could possibly justify.
