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Title

Series consists of

41 lower level description(s)

Arrangement structure

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Series part of

Northern Affairs Program sous-fonds [multiple media] (R216-186-7-E)

Bilingual equivalent

Direction des Territoires du Nord-Ouest et du Yukon [document textuel, document cartographique]

Date(s)

1894-1958

Place of creation

No place, unknown, or undetermined

Extent

90.24 m of textual records
77,217 photographs
1 map blackline print, hand col. 61 x 83 cm.

Language of material

English

Scope and content

Series consists of records created and maintained by the Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch between 1894 and 1968. The records include central registry files and other material from the following offices: the central registry office, the Mining Lands Section, the Mining Supervision and Inspection Branch, the Fort Smith District Office, the Baffin Island Expedition, the Arctic Weather Station Sea Supply Mission, and the Eastern Arctic Patrol. There are also considerable photographs in albums and folios depicting the transformation and development of the North, aerial photos of the NWT and Yukon Territories, Inuit, First Nations and non-native populations.

Conditions of access

Terms of use

Copyright belongs to the Crown. In order to protect the fragile originals, the microfilm copies of these records must be consulted rather than the originals.
Cartographic material : Copyright belongs to the Crown. Credit Library and Archives Canada.

Additional name(s)

Canada. Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch. Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch.

Biography / Administrative history

In 1922, the Mining Lands and Yukon Branch of the Department of the Interior was split into the Mining Lands Branch and the Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch. The new Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch was given a Director, O.S. Finnie, who reported directly to the Deputy Minister of the Interior. In other words, the Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch was a fully independent agency on the same level as were the National Parks, Surveys, Forestry, and Water Power Branches of the Department of the Interior, and not accountable in any way to the Dominion Lands Administration. All functions not involved with the actual leasing of mines and petroleum sites were transferred to the new Branch from the old Mining Lands and Yukon Branch and from the Northwest Territories Council. These responsibilities included "all matters, with the exception of mining, pertaining to the Department of the Interior and having to do with the Northwest Territories and Yukon" (Interior, Annual Report, 1923, p. 153). The Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch also received from the old Mining Lands and Yukon Branch responsibility for the inspection of mines and of petroleum and natural gas wells in the North and on the prairies. Those officials of the Yukon's local government who previously had reported since 1914 through the Mining Lands and Yukon Branch now reported through the Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch. Officials of the Branch in the North were gradually changed from Mining Recorders to District Agents so that they could perform wider functions of inspection, regulation, and general administration.

In addition to the Branch's office administration and an Exploration and Development Officer who reported directly to the Branch Director, the Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch had six units to fulfil its numerous functions, four in Ottawa and two in the field: Explorations Division,Eskimo Affairs,Northwest Territories Game Division,Engineering Division,Northwest Territories District Office,Yukon Territory Government. Despite this structure, operations were limited: the four headquarters divisions, for example, only had from two to six people each, the Fort Smith District Office employed eleven, and the Yukon local government only fifteen.

To carry out these extensive functions, the Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch developed an entirely new series of central registry files separate from that maintained by the old Mining Lands and Yukon Branch. The new series consisted of sequentially numbered files with accompanying alphabetical subject indexes. The system remained in use until 1951. RG85 General Inventory

Additional information

Source

Government

MIKAN no.

135006