Explore on Foot

3904 Wiley Rd., Yellowknife,
867-873-8850
BY ALL ACCOUNTS, this is the quintessential local experience, and home to the best-value lunch or dinner in town. Chef Pierre took over the place in 2007 (igniting a heated controversy by trying to change its name to Le Wildcat Café), and has crafted a menu characterized by interesting, delicious dishes like northern fish chowder with bannock ($11) and Musk-a-Boutine, a riff on poutine with muskox and caribou ($18). The well-scuffed, 72-year-old log cabin (recreated at Ottawa’s Museum of Civilization) is decorated by throwback photos and traps, with free-for-all seating at seven small tables.

5012 53rd St., Yellowknife,
867-873-5540
A GOURMAND'S emporium might be the last thing you’d expect here, but local restaurant guru Pierre LePage’s mind isn’t wired for conventional wisdom. Epicurean spices, sauces, condiments and tools galore cramp this converted house, and the deli counter has excellent cheeses, salads, sandwiches, wraps and pastries—everything you’d need for a wonderful wilderness picnic.

Yellowknife,
THE 250-FOOT-TALL beacon of Con Mine, which produced gold for 65 years before being shut down in 2003, is the NWT’s tallest structure. The shaft below it plunges 6,240 feet deep. But here’s the really big downer: it currently serves no purpose beyond guiding boats into town from Great Slave Lake. WANTED: Investors with deep pockets and madcap ideas!

50th Avenue and 54th Street, Yellowknife,
THIS DIMINUTIVE cabin built in 1939 as the Territories’ classroom had room for only about a dozen inquiring young minds at a time. The local Red Hat Society (a women’s social guild, a.k.a. the “Dazzling Diamond Divas”) has re-opened the schoolhouse (complete with relic desks) this summer as a tourist attraction—an inadvertent testament to how much tougher cramming* was for a mid-century student.

4910 49th St., Yellowknife,
867-920-4041
THIS UNPOLISHED tavern with a classic-rock soundtrack draws locals in droves, especially on Wednesday wing nights (six for $2.75). The menu also features meal-sized salads and a range of tasty burgers (including caribou!). The plate armour, football scarves, dart lockers and drunken photo collages are more “British Isles” than “End of the Tree Line.” Unfortunately, there’s no local brew, but the tap selection is pretty solid.
http://www.blackknightpub.com

4750 48th St., Yellowknife,
867-873-7551
USING AN impressive cache of cultural artifacts and indigenous creations, ranging from a huge moose-skin boat to a computer’s dissected mineral content, this government-run museum and gallery aims to explain and enshrine the evolution of the Northwest Territories. It’s also home to the territorial archives, and a subdued café upstairs if all that learning leaves you peckish.
http://www.pwnhc.learnnet.nt.ca

Yellowknife,
867-669-2230
A STUNNING, ecologically nuanced, 46,000-sq.-ft. spaceship of a building on Frame Lake’s shoreline, where the territory’s consensus government has deliberated since 1993 (previously, they used local hotels). Free (albeit restricted) tours run at 10:30 a.m., 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. from Monday to Saturday (1:30 p.m. only on Sunday) during summer. Don’t miss the gorgeous territorial mace in the Great Hall.
http://www.assembly.gov.nt.ca