Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 12:00pm & 1:00pm- 4:30pm
Location: Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, 4750 48th Street, P.O. Box 1320, Yellowknife, NT X1A 2L9
Contact: 1-867-767-9347 ex 71211; nwtarchives@gov.nt.ca
Access: Open to the Public
Website: http://www.nwtarchives.ca/
Located within the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre is the Northwest Territories (NWT) Archives, which houses more than one kilometre of text, over 350,000 photographs and thousands of hours of sound recordings and films documenting the history of the Northwest Territories. Records include the activities of the Government of the Northwest Territories, oral tradition and history of NWT Aboriginal peoples, constitutional development in the NWT leading up to the creation of Nunavut, the fur trade, the aviation industry, the development of the mining industry as well as other private collections of local individuals and organizations.
Notable NWT Archive collections include records of the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) (1888- ), which explore institutional practices, policies, and the constitutional development of the Northwest Territories, including present-day Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon, the entirety of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and portions of Manitoba, Québec, and Ontario. Other notable records include documents from the Territorial Council (1921-1951) and the Carrothers Commission (1965-1966), an Advisory Commission on the Development of Government in the Northwest Territories. The Northern Administration Branch, a division of the federal Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, played an important role in administering the Northwest Territories from 1923-1971. Its collection (1923-1967, predominant 1949-1967) spans 44m of textual reference including correspondence, financial data and minutes. Other notable collections include fonds from the City of Yellowknife (1920-2005) and the town of Hay River (1931-1982), which began as a Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) trading post in 1868.
Private collections of individuals and organizations within the NWT Archives include the records of politician and businessman Robert (Bobbie) Porritt (1828-1984), former teacher Mary Saich (1940-1942) and former NWT Commissioners John Parker (1962-) and Stuart Hodgson. Other notable local business and local organizational collections include Giant Mine (1943-1999), NWT Chamber of Mines (1948-2007), Fort Resolution Community Education Council (c.1930, 1984-85) and NWT Council for Disabled Persons (1977-1995). Notable union collections include the Union of Northern Workers (1970-1994) and Canadian Auto Workers (1950-2000).