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Visitors' Top Ten

Our visitors vote with their hearts and their feet.
These are the top ten events and top ten attractions of Northern Frontier, as selected by you the visitor.

EVENTS

1. Caribou Carnival
Held the last weekend of March each year, this festival puts an end to winter in Yellowknife. Big name entertainment, skidoo and dog races and feats of strength and skill. Fun for the whole family.

2. Canadian Championship Dog Derby
A three day, 150-mile race run on Great Slave Lake ice, held at the end of March, and part of the World Cup of dog sled racing. Run since 1955, the Dog Derby now features mushers from around the world, custom bred dogs and high-tech sleds. Catch the excitement at the mass start each day and marvel at the stamina of men, women and dogs. www.yellowknifedogderby.com

3. Canada Day – July 1
This national holiday is truly a multicultural event in Yellowknife – with a parade, music and games, and citizenship ceremonies in the park.

4. Aboriginal Day – June 21
This territorial holiday honours the Aboriginal people of the North and features traditional entertainment, storytelling, and lots of caribou stew, bannock and tea.

5. Longest Day of the Year - Raven Mad Daze
When the sun is high in the sky all day and all night, June 21, Yellowknifers go raven mad. Street sales, live bands, and plenty of finger food keep the family hopping till well past midnight. Just when you think the sun has disappeared, it pops up again and its time to go boating, or tee off at the Midnight Sun golf tournament.…

6. Midnight Sun Golf Tournament 
A Yellowknife Golf Club annual event, sponsored by the folks at Canadian North. The first flight is at midnight and features a special guest. Then you contend with thieving ravens, sand fairways and astroturf greens. Great prizes include trips for two on the airline.

7.  Snow King Winter Festival
For the past nine years, the Snowking has built his castle. He dedicates his days to make this amazing, icy construction so the people of Yellowknife and visitors alike can enjoy his magical palace. The Snowking's castle has captured the imagination and hearts of many.

8. Folk on the Rocks – mid July
Actually, this two day folk-blues concert is held in a beautiful sandy amphitheatre on the shores of a shimmering lake. It’s a beautiful setting to relax, take in a few rays and enjoy your favorite performers. Workshops and fun for kids are part of the package.

9. Yellowknife International Airshow
The Air Show is held b-annually with Air Show Static adn live displays.  The Next Airshow will be held in 2006.  Yellowknife is a bush pilot paradise...featuring awesome flying, and pilot reunions at the Float Plane Fly-In Being held in June 2005.

10. Mining week
It’s time to dust off your samples, schmooze with the mining execs and practice your skills as a hard rock gold miner. Or, like the teams from every mine in the NWT and Nunavut, compete in the annual Mine Rescue Competition, a test of skill and safety knowledge in a simulated mine emergency. Our teams measure up to the best in Canada.

ATTRACTIONS

1. Northern Frontier Visitor’s Centre
That’s us! We’re delighted we rate. Come, visit us any time.

2. Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre

3. Wildcat Café and Old Town
Old Town, summer and winter, has a charm all its own. Great eating, quaint ambiance, water views and historic buildings combine with bush planes on floats or skis to take you back to the early days of the city and of northern flying. The Wildcat Café rocks through summer with local and visiting musicians dropping in for dinner or for a jam session.

4. Bush Pilot’s Monument
Top of the Rock in Old Town, this is our northern version of the CN tower. With 360 degree view, six stories up, it’s a favorite with locals for weddings, and one of the best places in the city to see the fall and winter aurora.

5. Golf Club
Everyone has to take a look at our Golf Club, and try to play its unique sand fairways. Local rules permit replacing a ball stolen by a raven.

6. Aurora Viewing – September to April
Look up, up, and around. In summer the sky over Yellowknife Bay is as wide and blue as a prairie sky. Cruise to a welcoming island in Yellowknife Bay for a northern style feast on a long summer afternoon or evening. Fall and winter offer a different perspective, a midnight blue dome filled with stars lends a ghostly light to gleaming snow. The aurora, or the dancing northern lights warm your spirit on the snowy landscape.

7. Frame Lake Walking Trail
Forget the rush and bustle of our vibrant city and take to the trails. Skirting a picturesque little lake the Frame Lake walking and biking trail offers scenic views of the lake and the city at every turn.

8. Legislative Assembly
Shaped like a traditional snowhouse, and almost hidden in a natural stand of spruce and jackpine, the NWT Legislative Assembly is the scenic focus of the capital region. The Assembly’s unique circular chambers recall the traditional northern approach to government, and encourage our unusual concensus style government.

9. Diavik Diamond Display
Diavik Diamond Mines devotes the main lobby of its downtown office to a series of displays highlighting the search for diamonds and the development of a diamond mine, in the treeless tundra far to the north of the city.

10. Yellowknife Cultural Crossroads
Tracings of human hands from many cultural groups, a traditional drum and a raven are etched into a rock face. The bronze sculpture, designed by three aboriginal artists, celebrates the power of working together.

Photographs by David Marcus (Outcrop), Tessa Macintosh, Fran Hurcomb, Terry Parker (NWTAT) and Ronne Heming (Outcrop).