Cathy Jewison: A Short History of Yellowknife

By Cathy Jewison
Copyright © Cathy Jewison, 2007. All rights reserved.

The local Dene (First Nations) people call Yellowknife "S’ombak’é," which means the "money place." Others have described Yellowknife as a city where the gold is paved with streets. It was certainly the promise of riches that lured Yellowknife’s early residents to the area.

In the fall of 1934, gold was discovered on the north shore of Great Slave Lake. By the following spring, gold fever had struck and a tent city sprung up on Yellowknife Bay. The name "Yellowknife" was chosen in honour of a group of local Dene who carried knives with copper blades.

The "A" shaft headframe at Giant Mine, on the outskirts of Yellowknife, NWT.

By 1938, Yellowknife’s Con Mine poured the first gold brick in the Northwest Territories. More mines were quickly established. Gold production was suspended during World War II, but once the war ended, activity quickly resumed. Con Mine reopened. Development of Giant mine began in 1945, with the first gold brick poured in 1948. Yellowknife became so crowded that the sanitation system couldn’t keep pace, and raw sewage ran into Great Slave Lake. A new town site was surveyed, and construction began in 1947.

The original location of the community is now known as the "Old Town." At the heart of the Old Town lies the busy Yellowknife float base. Bush planes, crucial to the development of Yellowknife and the North, are still an important means of transporting people and goods in the wilderness.

Municipal government was established in the late ’30s, and continued to develop over the decades – Yellowknife became the NWT’s first city in 1970.Yellowknife’s prestige and economy were both given a boost in 1967, when it was named the capital of the NWT and the NWT Commissioner and his staff moved north. (From 1905 until after World War II, the Northwest Territories had been administered from Ottawa by a commissioner and council appointed by the federal government. Starting in 1951, elected residents of the NWT were slowly added to the territorial council. By 1975, the Northwest Territories had a fully elected Legislative Assembly, which represents the people it serves.)

The gold mining industry that founded Yellowknife started winding down in the late 1990s. Both Giant Mine and Con Mine are now closed.

The headframes of Con Mine
rise above a Yellowknife neighbourhood.

Oil and gas exploration and diamond mining have replaced gold as the source of much of Yellowknife’s prosperity. Diamonds were discovered on the barren-lands north of Yellowknife in 1991. BHP Billiton’s Ekati mine, North America’s first diamond mine, opened in 1998. The Diavik mine began production in January, 2003. De Beers Canada’s Snap Lake mine is scheduled to open in late 2007. Yellowknife is now home to diamond cutting and polishing plants, as well as other secondary diamond industries.

In addition to mining and government, Yellowknife’s economy benefits from tourism, retail, arts and crafts, transportation and construction.

Yellowknife has grown to 19,000 residents. It’s not just the booming economy that continues to pull people north, but also the city’s friendly and relaxed lifestyle. Yellowknife has an active arts community. Theatrical and musical performances are held throughout the year at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre, and during the summer at festivals like Folk on the Rocks and the NorthWords Writers Festival. The exhibits and archives at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre document the history of the NWT. Yellowknife is also home to a number of commercial art galleries, and a guild of crafts whose pottery sales are eagerly anticipated by Yellowknifers.

Golfing at Yellowknife's
all-sand golf course.

Recreational facilities include a curling rink, swimming pool, twin-pad ice rink and an 18-hole sand golf course. Since the city is perched on the fifth largest lake in North America, many residents and visitors enjoy boating and fishing in the summer.

Many people still come to the Canadian North to seek their fortunes. Those who end up in Yellowknife find a city rich with history and northern charm, economic potential, and a wide range of opportunities to participate in community life.