A history with ancient roots
In the Northwest Territories, history is the saga of great journeys. About 12,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age, ancestors of some modern Aboriginal peoples came from the Yukon to the upper Mackenzie Valley. As the glaciers retreated, freeing Great Slave and Great Bear Lakes, the bison hunters of the western plains moved north. A campsite at Acasta Lake east of Great Bear establishes their presence some 7,000 years ago. The people began to follow the caribou onto the Barrens in summer, returning to the forest in winter. Today's Dene, who belong to a language group called Athapascan, have occupied the southern NWT for some 2,500 years, travelling and hunting in small groups.
The first predecessors of the Inuvialuit arrived about 4,000 years ago, and continued their migrations in a succession of cultural waves. The Dorset culture thrived for about 1800 years until the Thule people, direct ancestors of modern Inuit, began to move across the Arctic in 1000 AD. By this time, the Dene lived in the territories they still occupy today. Europeans did not make recorded visits to the present-day NWT until late in the 18th century, when fur traders established the first posts on the shores of Great Slave Lake. Explorers and missionaries came in the 19th century, and many of today's communities put down roots. Prospectors and bush pilots brought the 20th century north, and with it an era of sweeping change.
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