The Northwest Territories (NWT) boasts a profound connection to its environment,\u00a0evidenced\u00a0by\u00a0a\u00a0long history\u00a0of\u00a0wildlife conservation,\u00a0to extensive mining activities.\u00a0The NWT holds\u00a0the distinction for the most lakes in Canada, estimated at\u00a0approximately one\u00a0million\u00a0(Lakes in Canada, 2006). Furthermore, it is home to Canada\u2019s largest lake, Great Bear Lake, covering\u00a031,000 km\u00b2, and North America\u2019s deepest lake, Great Slave Lake, plunging to 2,000 feet (Lakes in Canada, 2006).With\u00a0some\u00a0of the biggest lakes in the world, comes\u00a0rivers that supply them. The Mackenzie River is the longest river in Canada stretching approximately\u00a01,800km\u00a0starting at the Great Slave Lake,\u00a0draining north\u00a0in the Beaufort Sea Northwest Canada (Marsh, 2006).\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mackenzie River, known as the \u201cDeh Cho\u201d to the Dene meaning Big River, holds significant importance to the Indigenous population\u00a0and all\u00a0who enjoy the fishing,\u00a0hunting\u00a0and traveling, the river provides.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Communities\u00a0settled\u00a0along\u00a0the Mackenzie River\u00a0are\u00a0remote, and\u00a0rely on the\u00a0river for delivering essentials. The\u00a0Marine Transportation Services (MTS)\u00a0is\u00a0a cargo ship fleet\u00a0supplying\u00a0communities with\u00a0fuel,\u00a0vehicles, building\u00a0supplies\u00a0and non-perishable foods (GNWT, 2026). Although\u00a0mail is delivered\u00a0more\u00a0frequently\u00a0by\u00a0air,\u00a0big packages are delivered annually in the summer, when ice is thawed.\u00a0If the\u00a0water\u00a0levels of the Mackenzie River are low\u00a0in the summer, this can put the communities at risk of\u00a0not getting their annual supply.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Northwest Territories (NWT) boasts a profound connection to its environment,\u00a0evidenced\u00a0by\u00a0a\u00a0long history\u00a0of\u00a0wildlife conservation,\u00a0to extensive mining activities.\u00a0The NWT holds\u00a0the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-775047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}