Yellowknife

Longitude: 62° 27' 0" N

·      Latitude: 114° 21' 0" W

·      Population:15,865

·      Population Density: 142.86 people/km²

·      Landforms: Canadian shield

·      Climate: Taigia. Semi-arid subarctic climate and sees less than 300 millimetres of precipitation per year. the city also has a frost-free growing season that lasts about 100 days every year. average summer temperatures in Yellowknife sit at about 20 degrees and -30 degrees in winter.  
     
     Industries: mining, industry, transportation, communications, education, health, tourism, commerce and all government activity in the territory.
     
      Ecozone: Plants: paper birch, water birch, Alaska paper, trembling aspen, black spruce. Animals: Black/ grizzly bear, wolf, lynx, caribou, moose, mountain goat, American pika, hoary marmot. Fish: lake whitefish, lake chub, Chinook salmon

·      National Park: Nahanni (different country)

·      Tourism: Aurora Borealis, nature, arctic scenery

The home of endless summer days, amazing arctic scenery, and a thriving community is Yellowknife NWT. Sitting on the edge of Great Slave Lake. During the summer the lake calls to boaters and fishers. Yellowknife was certainly a beautiful sight for my family and I arriving.  While we were here we decided to take advantage of the arctic climate and what it has to offer. We found a tour company called Aurora World and it sounded exactly what we were looking for. This tour specializes in adventures centered around the northern lights, also called Aurora Borealis.

 Before we got to view the magnificent northern lights we had many other activities. In Yellowknife, July has the wettest weather when on average 36 mm of rain, sleet hail or snow falls across 9 days. We are lucky because our stop in Yellowknife was in the middle of these 9 days and therefore me and my family could participate in the dogsled part of the tour! My family and I got to drive dogsleds! This trip has given me so many opportunities to do things I wouldn’t be able to do in St.Catharines! Our dogs raced across the snow and took us around the beautiful arctic area. We saw many of the common trees there such as, paper birch, water birch, trembling aspen, and black spruce. After that our tour group was taken to the main Aurora World Lodge where we had our choice of Northern Stew or Chowder. 

The guides were making everything very authentic to the culture of the north. They even had exhibits to the native Chipewyan tribe that was there during the 1800’s. finally nighttime fell and the northern lights began. It was like colourful rippled were going across the entire night sky. There was blue, yellow, green and all the shades and hues in between. We were all mesmerized. Nothing from St. Catharines can come close to the one and only northern lights here in Yellowknife.