Sources: Department of Municipal and Community Affairs,[3] Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre,[4] Canada Flight Supplement[5] ^A 2018 figure based on Edmonton = 100[6] ^B 2019 figure based on Yellowknife = 100[6]
The First Nations people who make up the majority are Gwich'in (Teetł'it Gwich'in) and the two principal languages spoken are Gwichʼin and English.[7]
Originally the site of a Hudson's Bay Company post the community was named for Murdoch McPherson.
Most people have vehicles and regularly make trips to either Inuvik, or Whitehorse, Yukon.
History
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.
Fort McPherson is accessible by road all year from Dawson City and Whitehorse, Yukon, with the exception of spring break-up and fall freeze-up on the Peel River. The community also has access to Inuvik via the Dempster Highway and crosses the Mackenzie River at Tsiigehtchic.
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Fort McPherson had a population of 647 living in 255 of its 318 total private dwellings, a change of -7.6% from its 2016 population of 700. With a land area of 53.83 km2 (20.78 sq mi), it had a population density of 12.0/km2 (31.1/sq mi) in 2021.[2]
In the 2016 Census 695 people identified as Indigenous, 610 as First Nations, 15 as Métis, 20 as Inuit or Inuvialuit, 10 giving multiple or other aboriginal responses and 40 non-Aboriginal.[10]
Federal census population history of Fort McPherson
Sources: NWT Bureau of Statistics (2008 - 2019),[6] NWT Bureau of Statistics (2001 - 2017)[18]
Climate
Fort McPherson experiences a subarctic climate (Köppen climate classificationDfc). The highest temperature ever recorded in Fort McPherson was 35.1 °C (95.2 °F) on 6 August 2024.[19] The coldest temperature ever recorded was −55.6 °C (−68.1 °F) on 14 January 1894.[20]
^"Daily Data Report for May 2010". Canadian Climate Data. Environment and Climate Change Canada. Climate ID: 2201601. Retrieved 1 July 2016.
^Climate data was recorded at Fort McPherson from October 1892 to June 1977 and at Fort McPherson Airport from August 1981 to present.
Further reading
Carefoot, E. I., and N. A. Lawrence. Utility Study Settlement of Ft. McPherson for Department of Public Works, Government of the Northwest Territories. Edmonton: Associated Engineering Services, 1972.
Gallupe, Scott. Husky Lake, Fort McPherson Area Historic Hydrocarbon Exploration Investigation June 29, 1992. Inuvik, NT: Northern Affairs Program, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 1992.
Kakfwi, Stephen. Literacy Program Funding, Fort McPherson. Yellowknife?, N.W.T.: Northwest Territories, Executive Council, 1991.
Manitoba Free Press. Pemmican Made at Fort McPherson, a Hudson's Bay Company's Post Sixty-Five Miles Within the Arctic Circle and Two Thousand Nine Hundred and Seventy-Eight Miles Northwest of Winnipeg A Christmas Present from the Manitoba Free Press. Winnipeg: [s.n.], 1902. ISBN0-665-78324-8
Northern Engineering Services Company, and Canadian Arctic Gas Study Limited. Report on All-Weather Road from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Fort McPherson, N.W.T. [Canada?]: Northern Engineering Services, 1972.
Northwest Territories, and Jane Gilmartin Gilchrist Collection (Newberry Library). Gwich'in Alphabet Posters Fort McPherson Dialect. [Fort McPherson]: Northwest Territories, Dept. of Education, Programs and Evaluation Branch, 1981.
Ripley, Klohn & Leonoff International Limited. Community Granular Materials Inventory Fort McPherson, N.W.T. [s.l.]: Dept. of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1972.