The Territories of Canada

Along with the ten provinces, Canada has two other self-governing regions known as the territories. The territories are located in the far northern part of Canada, and are almost entirely uninhabited. This is because most of the land in the territories is permanently frozen, thus making it very hard to live on, even if you wanted to. As I explained on the provincial governments section, because of their tiny populations and relative lack of importance, the three territories were historically governed in a sort of neo-colonial power-sharing agreement between a small elected council and an appointed representative of the federal government. Legacies of this unique system remain today, with the feds continuing to hold sole jurisdiction over certain powers of governance, such as control of natural resources. As far as federal politics goes, the three territories only get to elect one member of parliament each.

The territories have extremely small populations and are largely inhabited by people who can be either described as "colorful" or "weird" depending on how polite you want to be. There are lots of Native Inuit people, also known as Eskimos, as well as a vast array of people who are only living in the north to escape some sort of horrible past they have abandoned in some other part of the world. Vis-à-vis the rest of Canada, my favorite description of Northern Canadians comes from Will and Ian Ferguson, in their hilarious book How to Be Canadian:

"Northerners tend to view southern Canadians (anyone who resides below the 60th parallel) in much the same way that Canadians view Americans. Meaning, they mistake our apathy for ignorance and think we're being condescending and mean-spirited whenever we show any sort of mild interest in what might possibly be going on up there. They think we're patronizing or something."

The Yukon Territory is probably the most "urbanized" of the three territories. Many years ago, there was a big gold rush in the Yukon and people from all over Canada and the United States flocked north to get their hands on some of the treasure. The gold rush really helped the Yukon's infrastructure, and to this day many of the territory's largest cities are built on the remains of towns built in that era. Today the Yukon is a very modernized and cosmopolitan place, with big shopping malls and Mexican resturaunts and all the rest.

Sometime during the 70's the Canadian federal government allowed the Yukon to become the first territory with their own elected government. This triggered a period of initial awkwardness, in which a region with only 30,000 people clumsily attempted to apply the complicated bureaucratic and political structures of a province to an area smaller than most Canadian cities. Today, the Yukon has an extremely large bureaucracy, and a government that some consider laughably large and expensive, given the size of the region it is required to administrate.

The Yukon is also the only territory that participates in openly partisan elections, with most of Canada's major political parties having a presence in the tiny legislature. Yet ironically enough, the Yukon is currently governed by the Yukon Party, which as the name suggests, is a local party devoted mostly to regional interests.

Yukon people quaintly refer to the rest of the non-Yukon universe as "outside." Thus, moving to Brazil would be referred to as "going outside" by your typical Yukoner. Quaint, eh?

It is entirely possible that the Yukon will become a full province of Canada sometime in the future. I believe this is the officially stated "goal" of both the Yukon and Canadian governments.

The North West Territory is the largest territory in Canada, and the most heavily populated. As I explained in the history section, the North West Territory used to be administered by the Hudson's Bay fur-trading corporation, and was originally much, much larger than it is now, enveloping most of present-day Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. When the fur-trade ran out of steam, the HBC lost much of it's power, and the North West Territory was entrusted to the Canadian government, who then split it up into a bunch of new provinces.

The modern day North West Territory, or NWT as it is affectionately known, is a desolate, barren wasteland of ice and snow. There is a high number of native citizens, and pretty much the entire 41,000 person population is centralized in the capitol city of Yellowknife. Unfortunately, the territory has a lot of problems, many of which have been heavily publicized by the Canadian media in recent years. It is horribly boring in NWT, and as a result, teenagers often resort to drugs or crime, often because there is simply nothing else to do.

The Nunavut Territory was carved out of the NWT in 1999. Why exactly this was necessary is not entirely clear to anyone, but it cost billions of dollars to do, so I'm sure it was done for important reasons. I mean, our government would never blow a bunch of money on something stupid and worthless, right?

The Nunavut territory is almost exactly the same as the NWT, except its population is a bit smaller, and it is weather is a bit colder.

Nunavut and the NWT are the only places in North America where aboriginals (and not whites) compose the majority of the population. As a result, their communities and political systems are often touted as a leading example of effective aboriginal self-governance.