Yellowknife
NWT
VY0ZOO/VE8
Nov 26-30, 2025
Yellowknife[a] is the capital, largest community, and the only city in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about 400 km (250 mi) south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the outlet of the Yellowknife River.
Yellowknife and its surrounding water bodies were named after a local Dene tribe, who were known as the "Copper Indians" or "Yellowknife Indians", today incorporated as the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. They traded tools made from copper deposits near the Arctic Coast. Modern Yellowknives members can be found in the city as well as in the adjoining, primarily Indigenous communities of Ndilǫ and Dettah.
The city's population was 20,340 per the 2021 Canadian census. Of the eleven official languages of the Northwest Territories, five are spoken in significant numbers in Yellowknife: Dene Suline, Dogrib, South and North Slavey, English, and French. In the Dogrib language, the city is known as Sǫǫ̀mbak’è (Athapascan pronunciation: [sõːᵐbakʼe], "where the money is").
The Yellowknife settlement is considered to have been founded in 1934 after gold was found in the area, although commercial activity in the present-day waterfront area did not begin until 1936. Yellowknife quickly became the centre of economic activity in the NWT, and was named the capital of the Northwest Territories in 1967. As gold production began to decrease, Yellowknife shifted from being a mining town to a centre of government services in the 1980s. However, with the discovery of diamonds north of the city in 1991, this shift began to reverse. In recent years, tourism, transportation, and communications have also emerged as significant industries in Yellowknife.
Fun fact: Tim Horton's of donut and coffee fame has the busiest restaurants/drive throughs in Yellowknife than in all of Canada.
Serious no fun fact is NWT 's leading cause of death is colon cancer probably due to the mining and extraction activities dating back to the 70s. Many lakes and rivers are polluted badly with byproducts of mining.
R&R in the Knife...
I love to visit Yellowknife or as we call it fondly, the Knife, for great restaurants, hotels, homes, malls, and terrific shops that cater to people who work in the North or like me in the Arctic.
We need special clothing that is rated to well below zero all winter long like for my trip to the Antarctic at -112 F or C , the same thing as both scales meet at -40. In Nunavut, it is typically -50 C all winter long starting from the middle of January.
My favorite restaurant is the Coyote Grill for its Angus steaks, lobster, surf and turf, smooth Sleeman draft beer and strawberry cheesecake for a delicious dessert.
Yellowknife has the most observed Northern Lights in all of Canada.
There are usually a lot of Japanese tourists in Dec and January because there are more Northern Lights /Auroras happening and it is good luck to conceive a child under the northern lights in Japanese culture.
We can play too.
Yellowknife has the well known ice castle and slides for kids of all ages.
CLIMATE
Climate: Yellowknife has a subarctic climate (Köppen: Dfc, Trewartha Ecld). Although winter is predominantly polar, rapid heat waves emerge at the summit of summer due to the immense path south. The city averages less than 300 mm (12 in) of precipitation annually, as it lies in the rain shadow of mountain ranges to the west. Due to its location on Great Slave Lake, Yellowknife has a frost-free growing season that averages slightly over 100 days. an occasional year, the first fall frost does not come until October.. Most of the limited precipitation falls between June and September, with April being the driest month of the year and August having the most rainfall. Snow that falls in winter accumulates on the ground until the spring thaw.
Welcome to my website
Come on in and listen to me on 20m 14.032 as VY0ZOO/Ve8 and then on 40m on 7.032 and pse qsl via Ve2xb and thanks in advance.
Dx'Pedition to Yellowknife VY0ZOO/VE8
Nov26-30, 2025
QSL via VE2XB ok on qrz.com
The color of the Northern Lights is determined by the type of gas particles colliding with them and the altitude of the collision. Green is the most common color, produced by oxygen at lower altitudes, while red is produced by oxygen at higher altitudes. Nitrogen gas creates blue and purple hues at lower altitudes, and can also produce pink or reddish-purple at the lower edges of the aurora