Fort McPherson Teet'lit Zheh The heart of the Gwich'in |
|
---|---|
Hamlet | |
A wooden church in Fort McPherson, NWT
|
|
Motto: Take what you need | |
Coordinates: 67°26′07″N 134°52′55″W / 67.43528°N 134.88194°WCoordinates: 67°26′07″N 134°52′55″W / 67.43528°N 134.88194°W | |
Country | Canada |
Territory | Northwest Territories |
Region | Inuvik Region |
Constituency | Mackenzie Delta |
Census division | Region 1 |
Hamlet | 1 November 1986 |
Government | |
• Chief | William R Koe |
• MLA | Fredrick (Sonny) Blake |
Area | |
• Land | 53.39 km2 (20.61 sq mi) |
Elevation | 43 m (141 ft) |
Population (2011) | |
• Total | 792 |
• Density | 14.8/km2 (38/sq mi) |
Time zone | Mountain (MST) (UTC−7) |
• Summer (DST) | MDT (UTC−6) |
Canadian Postal code | X0E 0J0 |
Area code(s) | 867 |
Telephone exchange | 952 |
- Living cost | 157.5 |
- Food price index | 165.7 |
Website | www.fortmcpherson.ca |
Sources: |
|
Official name | Fort McPherson National Historic Site of Canada |
Designated | 1969 |
Sources:
Department of Municipal and Community Affairs,
Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre,
Canada Flight Supplement
^A 209 figure based on Edmonton = 100
^B 2012 figure based on Yellowknife = 100
Fort McPherson (Gwich’in language: Teet'lit Zhehat the head of the waters) is a hamlet located in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is located on the east bank of the Peel River and is 121 km (75 mi) south of Inuvik on the Dempster Highway.
The two principal languages spoken are Gwich'in and English.
Originally the site of a Hudson's Bay Company post the community was named for "Murdoch McPherson".
The Gwich’in people of Fort McPherson are very welcoming of strangers and go out of their way to make them welcome. Most people have vehicles and regularly make trips to either Inuvik, or Whitehorse.
Fort McPherson was the starting point of Francis Joseph Fitzgerald's famous tragic journey of "The Lost Patrol". All four men on the Patrol, including Fitzgerald, were buried at Fort McPherson on 28 March 1911. In 1938, the graves were cemented over into one large tomb (to the right of the flag pole in above image), with cement posts at the four corners connected by a chain. In the centre is a memorial to the Royal Northwest Mounted Police Patrol of 1910.
In 1969, the area comprising the boundaries of the community of Fort McPherson, as it was mapped in 1898, was designated a National Historic Site of Canada, in recognition of the fact that the site had served as the principal Hudson's Bay Company trading post in the MacKenzie Delta region for over 50 years, and had been the first North-West Mounted Police post in the Western Arctic.