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Yukon /ˈjuːkɒn/ or The Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River, Yukon meaning "Great River" in Gwich’in. The territory's capital is Whitehorse. The territory was created in 1898 as the Yukon Territory. The federal government's most recent update of the Yukon Act in 2003 confirmed "Yukon", rather than "Yukon Territory", as the current usage standard. At 5,959 metres (19,551 ft), Yukon's Mount Logan, in Kluane National Park and Reserve, is the highest mountain in Canada and the second highest of North America (after Denali in the U.S. state of Alaska).

The territory is the approximate shape of a right triangle, bordering the U.S. state of Alaska to the west for 1,210 km (752 miles) mostly along longitude 141° W, the Northwest Territories to the east and British Columbia to the south. Its northern coast is on the Beaufort Sea. Its ragged eastern boundary mostly follows the divide between the Yukon Basin and the Mackenzie River drainage basin to the east in the Mackenzie mountains. Its capital is Whitehorse.

According to the 2001 Canadian census, the largest ethnic group in Yukon is English (27.1%), followed by First Nations (22.3%), Scottish (21.9%), Irish (19.1%), German (14.3%), and French (13.4%) – although over a quarter of all respondents also identified their ethnicity as "Canadian." An umbrella land claim agreement representing 7,000 members of fourteen different First Nations was signed with the federal government in 1992. Each of the individual First Nations then has to negotiate a specific land claim and a self-government agreement. As of December 2005, eleven of the 14 First Nations had a signed agreement. The territory once had an Inuit settlement, located on Herschel Island off the Arctic coast. This settlement was dismantled in 1987 and its inhabitants relocated to the Northwest Territories.

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The History of Yukon begins with disputed evidence of the oldest remains of human inhabitation in North America. A large number of apparently human-modified animal bones were discovered in the Old Crow area in the northern Yukon that have been dated to 25,000–40,000 years ago by carbon dating. The central and northern Yukon were not glaciated, as they were part of Beringia.

European incursions into what later became the Yukon started in the first half of the nineteenth century with the fur trade. Hudson's Bay Company explorers and traders from Mackenzie River trading posts used two different routes to enter Yukon and created trading posts along the way. The northern route started in Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories along the Mackenzie River, crossed the mountains into the Bell and Porcupine Rivers to the Yukon River. The southern route started at Fort Liard, Northwest Territories, then westward along the Liard River to Frances Lake and then along the Pelly River to its juncture with Yukon River.

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Yukon's tourism motto is "Larger than life". The Yukon's major appeal is its nearly pristine nature. Tourism relies heavily on this, and there are many organised outfitters and guides available to hunters and anglers and nature lovers of all sorts. There are also many opportunities to experience pre-colonial lifestyles by learning about Yukon's First Nations. Read more...

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▼ Yukon ► Buildings and structures in Yukon ► Government of Yukon ► Yukon law ► People from Yukon ► Yukon-related lists ► Yukon templates

Did you know? -

• ...that in 1870 the Government of Canada acquired the Yukon territory from the Hudson's Bay Company.

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Wintery sunrise (and sunset) at 3PM in January over Marsh Lake, Yukon.

WikiProject Canadian Territories

The Canadian Territories WikiProject is the group that oversees Yukon related topics.

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