Canada’s Territories bear witness to very different historical backgrounds, from the Klondike Gold Rush in 1896 that led to the establishment of Yukon in 1898 to Nunavut, which only became a Territory in its own right in 1999. Extreme weather conditions are, however, a unifying factor, with temperatures dropping to as low as -50°C and only a few hours of daylight in the winter, to summers where the sun hardly sets on the vast landscape.

Over the last few years, the cyclicality of the mining industry in Canada’s North has been as extreme as the seasons. In 2008, the North, especially Yukon, the most developed of the three Territories, experienced what seemed to be a second gold rush, with the exploration industry booming. However, since 2013, there has been a halt in exploration and a general contraction in the industry, but the mining industry remains buoyant. This report will examine each of Canada’s three unique Territories – Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut – and their exploration and mining sectors, each of which displays its own characteristics and individual challenges.