Fort Smith, Northwest Territories

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Fort Smith is a community in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is located in the southeastern portion of the Northwest Territories, on the Slave River and adjacent to the NWT/Alberta border. The town is approximately 300 km southeast of Yellowknife, the territorial capital. The park headquarters for Wood Buffalo National Park is located in Fort Smith. The Thebacha campus of Aurora College is located in Fort Smith. Fort Smith is located in the South Slave region.

Population is 2,185 according to the 2001 Census.

Fort Smith is the home of the Northern Life Museum and home of the museum ship Radium King.

Every year the South Slave Friendship Festival, a music and arts festival, occurs in Fort Smith, usually in August. Musicians and artists from across the Northwest Territories and many other faraway places come to interact with other artists and show off their talents to the public.

Fort Smith used to be a major transportation site. Goods were brought up to the nearby community of Fort Fitzgerald, Alberta and portaged on land to avoid four sets of unpassable rapids (Pelican, Portage, Casette and the Rapids of the Drowned). The goods were then placed back into the water at the Slave River in Fort Smith where they travelled north, all the way along other rivers (such as the Mackenzie River) to destinations as far away as the Arctic Coast. Of course the construction of roads (the main one from the south being the Mackenzie Highway with connections to Hay River, Northwest Territories) have put Fort Smith out of the water transportation business.

However, many tourists come to see the world-class Slave River and many kayakers try its rapids.

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