A Look at the Province, Part XI: The Yukon Territory

This is the eleventh article in the series and the first of the two territories (Northwest Territories and Nunavut will be combine because Nunavut is too new and I already wrote a full article on April First). Yukon is the Northewest Territory, west of the North West Territories and east the States, well one state: Alaska. It has an area of 483,450 square kilometres and has a population of 31,197 people. The Capital and only city is Whitehorse. It joined confederation when bought by the Canadian government in 1870 and split from the North West Territories in 1898.

The Yukon Territory lies north of 60 like all territorial territory with the exception of the Hudson Bay islands but that's not important for now. Its Natural region is the Cordillera, which is the same region as the Rocky Mountains. I haven't mentioned climate much in previous "A Look at the Provinces" chapters but this one is sort of important. It's one of those places where you don't want to be in January. The average in January is about -30°. I said AVERAGE, which means that it is not unusual that it goes lower than -45°. Now for any Americans who don't know the conversions (I don't blame them. I don't know how Farenheit works) -30°C is about -22°F and -45°C is about -50°F.

As I said when the Northwest Territories entered the Confederation in 1870, Yukon was part of it. At that point a very strong majority, if not all, were Inuit. The Europeans came once gold was found in the Klondike and Yukon Rivers in 1896. Where the rivers met a town called Dawson would be built (if you know Ancient Hockey history this would bring a smile to your face as you remember the loss of Dawson City to Ottawa (Silver Sreven) 24 to 2 or something like that, anyway, lets get back on topic). Millions were brought to the Dominion and Yukon was granted its own territorial title in 1898. At this point Minning Companies went into the Yukon Territory and individual goldminers left the territory. During the Second World War the northern area became strategic for "North American" defence. A oil pipeline and airfields brought wealth to the Territory. But the end of the war came and these things became useless and again, the population dropped. In the early 80's the mining prices collapsed and the Territory's economy when into depression but not much latter it had recovered.

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