Northwest Territories territory (2001 pop. 37,360), 532,643 sq mi (1,379,028 sq km), NW Canada. The Northwest Territories lie W of Nunavut, N of lat. 60°N, and E of Yukon. Until 1999, when the Northwest Territories were divided and the eastern portion became Nunavut , the region occupied more than one third of Canada's area. Yellowknife is the territorial capital.

Land and People

Geographically, the region is largely south of the tree line, which runs roughly northwest to southeast, from the Mackenzie River delta in the Arctic Ocean to the southeastern corner of the territory. Tundra characterizes the land north of the tree line; there the native inhabitants depend on hunting, fur-trapping, and making arts and crafts for income, and obtain many necessities from fish, seals, reindeer, and caribou. Most of the development in the territory has taken place south of the tree line, where the land is well covered with soft woods and rich in minerals. Here, too, are two of the largest lakes in the world, Great Slave and Great Bear , linked to the Arctic Ocean by one of the world's longest rivers, the Mackenzie , which runs 1,120 mi (1,800 km) from its source in Great Slave Lake. The Northwest Territories are the site of the northern end of Wood Buffalo National Park (est. 1922) and all of Nahanni National Park (est. 1972).

Economy

Agriculture in the Northwest Territories is virtually impossible except for limited cultivation south of the Mackenzie River region. Trapping, the region's oldest industry, ranks second after mining. A thriving commercial fishing industry, based on whitefish and lake trout, is centered on the village of Hay River, on Great Slave Lake. Minerals are now the Territories' most valuable natural resource. Oil is pumped and refined at Tulita (formerly Fort Norman) and Norman Wells on the Mackenzie River; copper is extracted on the Coppermine River; and diamonds and gold are being produced in increasing quantities. The region also has tungsten, silver, cadmium, nickel, zinc, and lead. Important hydroelectric developments are on the Talston and Snare rivers.

Transportation and Communication

Transportation and communication in the Northwest Territories are difficult. Long winters close the rivers to navigation for all but two months of the year. Despite the Great Slave Railway and the Mackenzie highway system, which links Alberta to the Great Slave area, commerce, supply, and travel continue to be largely airborne. The region has scores of airfields. An ongoing northern roads program, launched in 1966, is helping to open up the area. The Liard Highway, opened in 1984, ties Ft. Simpson to the Alaska Highway. Other highways link Inuvik to the Yukon and Hay River and Yellowknife to the highways of Alberta. In winter, some frozen rivers and lakes are used for road traffic. There are also extensive telecommunications services.

Government

The territory is governed by a 19-member assembly that elects a premier and cabinet; an appointed commissioner holds a position similar to that of a lieutenant governor in the Canadians provinces. The territory sends one senator and one representative to the national parliament.

History

When European incursions into the area began, they encountered the hunting and fishing Inuit and Dene. Vikings from Greenland may have been the first Europeans to venture into the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories, now Nunavut. Sir Martin Frobisher was the first in a long line of explorers to seek a Northwest Passage , but it was Henry Hudson who discovered the gateway to the Northwest (Hudson Bay) in 1610.

For several decades the Hudson's Bay Company sent trader-explorers through the northern sea lanes and along the coast, and in 1771, Samuel Hearne walked from Hudson Bay and descended the Coppermine River. In 1789, Alexander Mackenzie , exploring for the North West Company, journeyed to the mouth of the Mackenzie River. Sir John Franklin made scientific expeditions to the Arctic Northwest in the first half of the 19th cent., obtaining valuable geographical data.

The area that is now the Northwest Territories and Nunavut was part of the vast lands sold by the Hudson's Bay Company to the new Canadian confederation in 1870. Some of those lands were added to the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. The province of Manitoba was carved from them in 1870, and Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905, all south of 60°N. Yukon had become separate in 1898. The boundaries of the Northwest Territories were then set in 1912 and remained fixed until the creation of Nunavut in 1999.

Since the 1982 patriation of the Canadian constitution (see Canada Act ), several land claims by native peoples have been making their way through the courts and the federal government. In 1992, Northwest Territories residents voted to divide the territory roughly along ethnic lines, with the Inuit in the east and the Dene in the west. The new territory of Nunavut, dominated by the Inuit, came into existence on Apr. 1, 1999. This split the Northwest Territories along a zigzag line running from the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border through the Arctic Archipelago to the North Pole. Other native groups with claims are the Métis and the Inuvialuit. Joe Handley became the Territories' premier in Dec., 2003.

Bibliography

See R. A. Phillips, Canada: The Story of the Yukon and Northwest Territories (1966); K. J. Rea, Political Economy of the North (1968, repr. 1981); W. C. Wonders, ed., The North (1972); T. R. Berger, Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland (1976).

NORTHWEST TERRITORY

NORTHWEST TERRITORY. Part of the vast domain ceded by Great Britain to the United States in the Treaty of Paris (1783), the Northwest Territory encompassed the area west of Pennsylvania, east of the Mississippi River, and north of the Ohio River to the border with British Canada. The "Old Northwest, " as the region later came to be known, eventually included the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi River. The creation of the Northwest Territory was first implied in the Articles of Confederation (1780), which stipulated that all lands beyond the bounds of the original thirteen states would be owned and administered by the national government.

The establishment of a federal public domain reconciled and negated the competing claims of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, and New York to lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains. While this cleared the way for confederation, the means for administering these lands was not fully established until 1787, when Congress passed An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory

of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio. This Northwest Ordinance provided for the orderly survey of all lands into square sections of 640 acres and established the procedures for their sale to individuals and corporations. Besides the grid pattern of states, counties, towns, farms, and roads that would spread out across the continent, the ordinance also established the methods for creating new states and their admission into the Union "on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever."

Although some form of territorial governance continued in the Old Northwest until Minnesota achieved statehood in 1858, the administrative history of the Northwest Territory is fairly brief. The celebrated revolutionary war general Arthur St. Clair established the first territorial government on 15 July 1788. Because of increased migration, Congress in 1800 divided the Northwest Territory for administrative purposes and designated the western portion as the territory of Indiana. The reduced Northwest Territory ceased to exist as an official geopolitical entity in 1803, when the state of Ohio was admitted to the Union and Congress designated the region to the north as the territory of Michigan.

Despite its short duration, the history of the Northwest Territory is marked by some of the most brutal and aggressive warfare in U.S. history. Based on a vision of expanding agricultural settlement and motivated by a desperate need for the revenue that would come from the sale of public lands, federal policy was geared toward the rapid conversion of Indian lands into private property. Native alliances initially took a severe toll on U.S. forces, and at times as much as 80 percent of the entire federal budget went to fighting and removing Indians from their lands. By the end of the short territorial period, Native communities decimated by warfare and disease had moved beyond the bounds of Ohio to areas farther west. The scenario was repeated over the course of three decades, as new states entered the Union and the fertile soils of the Old Northwest were converted into the vast expanse of farms and towns that became a hallmark of the region.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cayton, Andrew R. L., and Peter S. Onuf. The Midwest and the Nation: Rethinking the History of an American Region. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.

Rohrbough, Malcolm J. The Trans-Appalachian Frontier: People, Societies, and Institutions, 1775–1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Mark DavidSpence

See alsoIndian Removal ; Territorial Governments ; Western Lands .

Ordinance of 1787 adopted by the Congress of Confederation for the government of the Western territories ceded to the United States by the states. It created the Northwest Territory and is frequently called the Northwest Ordinance. It was based on the ordinance of 1784, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, which provided for dividing the region into numerous territories. The 1784 ordinance never went into effect. In 1785 an ordinance was passed providing for division and sale of the lands. Subsequently, the application of the Ohio Company of Associates to purchase a large tract of land in the region forced Congress to act on political administration for the area. The able leaders of the company, Rufus Putnam and Manasseh Cutler , were influential in the drafting of the ordinance, which was passed July 13, 1787. It set up a government in the region N of the Ohio River. A territorial governor, a secretary, and three judges were to be appointed by Congress, which would retain control until the population reached 5,000 voting citizens, when an elected legislature would be set up and the territory would obtain a nonvoting representative in the U.S. House of Representatives. When any portion of the territory reached a population of 60,000 or more, it could apply for admission to the Union as a state according to conditions laid down in the ordinance; there were to be not less than three or more than five states created out of the region (five were ultimately created). The ordinance also provided that no one born in the Northwest Territory should be a slave, that no law should ever be passed there that would impair the obligation of contract, that the fundamental rights and religious freedom be observed, and that education be promoted. The ordinance was the most significant achievement of Congress under the Articles of Confederation. It set the form by which subsequent Western territories were created and later admitted into the Union as states and marked the beginning of Western expansion of the United States.

Northwest Territory, the Old Northwest, as distinguished from the present Northwest, was formed by the Great Lakes region between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, including the present states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a portion of Minnesota. It was first traversed by such French explorers as Duluth, La Salle, Jolliet, Cadillac, and Marquette, and was governed in conjunction with Louisiana and Canada. After the French influence became widespread, British interests represented by the Ohio Company began the conflict that led to Washington's expedition and the French and Indian Wars. After the British obtained Canada and the Old Northwest by the Treaty of Paris of 1763, the territory was involved in the uprising of Pontiac and the actions of Robert Rogers. During the Revolutionary War, it was conquered by George Rogers Clark, and by the Treaty of Paris of 1783 was given to the U.S. Several of the new states claimed the area, but it was finally placed under the control of the U.S. Congress and organized under the Ordinance of 1787. Subsequent unrest occurred due to Indian hostility, British agitation, and conflict of settlers. Even after the area was split into several different territories, the conflict with British influence had much to do with precipitating the War of 1812, and the problem of domination did not finally end until the Treaty of Ghent. Many authors of historical fiction have written of events in the history of the Territory; among their works are Kenneth Roberts's Northwest Passage, Winston Churchill's The Crossing, and Maurice Thompson's Alice of Old Vincennes.

Northwest Territories Region in n Canada, covering more than 33% of the country and consisting of mainland Canada n of latitude 60°N, and hundreds of islands in the Arctic Archipelago. The capital is Yellowknife. Much of the n and e of the province is tundra, inhabited by Inuit and other native peoples. The Hudson's Bay Company acquired the area under a charter from Charles II in 1670. In 1869, the Canadian government bought the land from the company. The present boundaries were set in 1912. In 1999, part of the Northwest Territories became the Inuit land of Nunavut. Most economic development has occurred in Mackenzie district, which has large tracts of softwoods and rich mineral deposits. Area: 3,426,000sq km (1,320,000sq mi). Pop. (2001) 37,360.

North-west Territory (or Old North-West) A region and former territory of the USA lying between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and the Great Lakes. It was acquired in 1783 after the War of American Independence and now comprises the states of Indiana (1800), Ohio (1803), Michigan (1805), Illinois (1809), and Wisconsin (1836).

Northwest Territories, Canada A territory in the north‐west (although Yukon Territory lies further to the north‐west). Before 1 April 1999 it was a huge area comprising the whole of northern Canada. In that year the new territory of Nunavut, the eastern half of the Northwest Territories, was created.