Northern Life Museum (Fort Smith, NWT)

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The Northern Life Museum is in Fort Smith Northwest Territories, Canada. The museum has a collection of over 10,000 artifacts representing the peoples and history of the North. Many of the artifacts were collected by the Oblate Fathers and the Grey Nuns during their missionary work in the North.

The artifacts were first displayed in 1964 in the basement of Grandin College(now P.W.K. High School). In 1972, the Northern Anthropological and Cultural Society was formed in Fort Smith with the purpose of promoting, building and maintaining a museum. The outside gallery is home to a collection of equipment and machinery that was used in and around Fort Smith. This exhibit includes a tractor that was brought north in 1918 to work the portage route between Fort Fitzgerald and Fort Smith. It also includes the Radium King, a vessel used first to haul uranium and radium ore and then later to push barges. The museum can be sampled via a virtual tour. The Northern Life Museum hosts 4 themes:

Transportation: An historical overview of transportation within the Peace, Athabasca, Slave and MacKenzie Rivers area, with a special recognition of the axial role played by Fort Smith and Fort Fitzgerald and their subsequent impact upon northern transportation.

People of the North: An interpretive narrative of the people who inhabit(ed) the North, their cultures, contributions and institutions, with a particular focus upon the Fort Smith Region.

Missionaries: An Account of the role, work and contributions of the missions within the Slave and Mackenzie River Valleys, extending from Fort Chipewyan in the south to the Arcitc coast in the north.

Natural History and Technology: An examination of the relationship between people and nature, with a focus on the means by which available resources are transformed into items to provide the necessities of life, and the changes brought about by new technologies.

The Northern Life Museum also hosts a Whooping Crane Display. The last remaining natural migratory flock of whooping cranes in the world nest in and around Wood Buffalo National Park. Canus was discovered as an injured chick by researchers in 1964. Unable to be released back into the wild, Canus (named after the joint CANadian/US effort) took up residence at Patuxent WIldlife Refuge, Marland as the first participant in their new captive breeding program. The program enjoyed great success and Canus' contribution brought him international recognition. Canus was welcomed in 2004 as a part of the Northern Life Museum's permanent exhibits

The Northern Life Museum is the oldest museum in the Northwest Territories.

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