NWT Data Book 1984-85: A Complete Information Guide to the Northwest Territories and Its Communities

Virginia Gillham is Associate Librarian in the Public Service Library at
the University of Guelph.

These two amazingly comprehensive handbooks of the Northwest Territories and the Yukon deal in their first sections with the characteristics of the areas as a whole, and in their second sections with profiles of each individual named community. In both cases information provided is detailed, comprehensive, and more technical/practical than tourist-oriented.

The first sections discuss such issues as geography, climate, flora and fauna, history of the various population components, political organization, industries and industrial statistics, and social services and conditions. The information supplied is encyclopedic in its coverage, and this portion of the books occupies almost 50 per cent of the total.

In the section given over to community profiles, some 60 Northwest Territory communities (all those in which government services, local businesses, and schools are present) and nearly twenty Yukon communities are described under such headings as location, topography, political organization, economy, transportation and communication, education, housing and accommodation, and recreational facilities.

These are extremely useful books, including in each slim volume enough information to meet most general needs. They are profusely illustrated with photographs (which remain frustratingly uncaptioned), and each volume includes a useful, lengthy bibliography.