Welcome to the NWT Timeline, a history of the Northwest Territories illustrated with artifacts, photographs and documents from the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (pwnhc.ca) and the NWT Archives (nwtarchives.ca). The site was created by the Government of the Northwest Territories’ Department of Education, Culture and Employment (ece.gov.nt.ca/en).

Scroll through the eras to learn about the rich and varied history of this magnificent, diverse territory.  The objects and photos for each story provide connections to the time, people, and land, placing the reader in eras long past and recognizing moments and people that deserve to be remembered.

Students and educators will find primary source resources to help bring history into their classrooms. 

How to Navigate

The ‘Stories’ on this website are organized in the sequence of when they occurred. The stories are grouped into ‘Eras,’ which are periods of time in which the stories took place.

There are many ways to interact with this website:

• Scroll horizontally through the eras on the Homepage using the large white arrows. Each era has a drop-down with many stories.
• Scroll vertically through the list of Stories
• Search for a story that might be of interest to you using keywords.
• See stories grouped by Era

Contact Us:

The history of the Northwest Territories is like the rivers that shape the land, always moving, changing and flowing. The NWT timeline is never intended to be complete. If you have stories or notice we missed something, please feel free to share them on this email, and we will happily review your suggestion: [email protected]