Lloyd Simpello, age 13, of Jamestown, N.Y. for his question:
HOW LARGE IS CANADA'S NORTHWEST TERRITORIES?
Canada's Northwest Territories is a vast region that covers about one third of the nation's total area. It stretches from the northern boundaries of the Canadian provinces and extends to within 500 miles of the North Pole. The Territories covers 1,304,903 square miles.
The gigantic region includes the Arctic homeland of about 12,000 Canadian Eskimos and about 7,000 northern Indians.
Until the 1950s, the Northwest Territories remained one of the world's last undeveloped frontiers. Now the region has one railroad and only one major highway. Pioneers are busy developing its great mineral wealth.
Yellowknife serves as the capital of the Northwest Territories. A commissioner and a 15 man council govern the Territories.
At one time the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development handled the administration of the Northwest Territories. A territorial public service now handles these duties.
The Northwest Territories is divided into three geographic districts: Mackenzie, Keewatin and Franklin. The area lies west of Greenland and north and west of Quebec. The provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia border the Territories on the south while the Yukon Territory lies to the west.
The Vikings were probably the first Europeans to visit the Northwest Territories. They may have sighted the Arctic shores about A.D. 1000.
The search for a Northwest Passage to the riches of China encouraged many explorers to look for a route around or through the North American continent to the west.
The first white man to cross the Territories by land was Samuel Hearne of the Hudson's Bay Company. He traveled overland in 1770.
The eastern part of the Northwest Territories had belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company since 1670. In that year, King Charles II of England granted the company a vast area called Rupert's Land. In 1870, the Dominion of Canada acquired Rupert's Land.
At the same time, Canada obtained from Great Britain a region called the North West Territory which lay north, west and south of Rupert's land. The Canadian government organized these two new possessions into the North West Territories, which later became known as the Northwest Territories.
The Territories lost part of the Manitoba area in 1870 when Manitoba became a province. The Yukon Territory was cut off in 1898 and the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905. In 1912, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec acquired certain areas.
The discovery of radium ore on the shore of Great Bear Lake in the early 1930s brought the Northwest Territories into world prominence.
The Canadian government did little to develop the territories until after World War II. But then it increased the number of Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachments and began to establish weather stations, post offices, schools and medical services.