Last modified: 2011-10-28 by rob raeside
Keywords: northwest territories | canada |
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![[Northern Territories (Canada)]](../images/c/ca-nt.gif)
image by Clay Moss, 14 August 2009
Municipal entities:
Other entities:
Aboriginal entities:
Valentin Poposki, 12 August 2007
| Inuvik Region | Fort Smith Region | |
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The website of the Legislative Assembly of the NWT, shows a map with 31 settlements linking to as much pages about each of them. As referred, all of these settlements (30 villages and the city of Yellowknife) have their own flags, though 2 are currently missing from these pages. The clickable map on this pages has also hidden links to Ndilo and Dettah, possibly new pages to be soon added.
The linked pages shows concise info about each settlement and a small flag image (100 px. high) linked to a much larger image (269 px. high). I used the latter to produce FOTW standard images (216 px. high), with palette optimization and BS recoloring of the main areas (not of dithered edges and small badge portions).
There are some questions to be answered regarding the status of these flags. We already were informed that they are unofficial, though it would be nice to know about their actual usage.
An interesting vexillological feature of these flags is that most of them (in a ratio much higher than in the rest of Canada) follow the distinctive pattern of the national flag, the so called Canadian pale: three vertical areas, being the central one larger and white and the others much narrower and of the same color (mostly blue, also black and red). However, unlike the national flag, whose stripes are 1+2+1 (i.e., the central area is square and of double width), these NTW flags are rather 28+41+28, even if the overall flag ratio is 1:2 all the same.
A second vexillological question would be about the reverse of these flags.
They all show more or less complex devices, often with lettering and/or
naturalistic and nonreversible elements, but in such a big size that a reverse
corrected for correct reading would be quite inconspicuous.
Antonio Martins, 25 June 2000
Revisiting Alistair Fraser's work on Canadian flags, one comes up with the following:
In anticipation of the forthcoming territorial pavilion at EXPO 86, Michael Moor, Deputy Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, suggested a display of municipal flags, one advantage of which would be that the newly created flags would outlast the exhibition. It was decided that all the flags would be based on that of the territorial flag (which is in turn based on the national flag). What was need was the motif for the centre of the Canadian pale. These were chosen by the communities and originated from many sources such as civic seals, letter heads, competitions and suggestions. Inkit Graphic Arts of Yellowknife chose the colour of the side panels to harmonize with the symbols.
In this process, two of the original municipal flags, those of Fort Smith and Inuvik, where adapted to the new pattern. The flag of Yellowknife already had a Canadian pale, while the flag of Pine Point, an incipient ghost town, remained unchanged. Yellowknife places its arms in the middle of the Canadian pale; Pine Point, now gone, featured one of the most popular symbols of the territories, the midnight sun.
This would also imply that the unofficial nature of the flags was because of the source of the flag, being developed for the Expo 86 and possibly not through the Chief Herald of Canada... well in 1986, Canadian heraldry was done in England. It was in 1988 that Canada was given authority to grant arms.
The quote does leave to question a few of the flags on-site. Were they adopted post-1986 because they don't fit into the pattern of a Canadian pale? Or were they changed to be more modern?
About the current usage the Legislative Assembly site, on another page (http://www.assembly.gov.nt.ca/VisitorInformation/CeremonialCircle.html) states:
The flags of the 33 communities in the NWT align the path crossing the end of Frame Lake leading to the Heritage Centre and Legislative Assembly. Each flagpole features a plague that shows each community's name in the Aboriginal language of the area and then the official name.
So they are presently in use, even if only used presently in Yellowknife.
Basically, the locales are that: settlements, villages, communities, hamlets, etc., i.e. habitations of people. If one follows through the pages, one can see that the size of these communities vary from very small and upward. I don't know about now, but a map I had of the NWT from the pre-split days shows several Districts. What these entities represent(ed) I don't know.
According to the Government of the NWT, there are only 23 municipal governments under the laws of the NWT. The other 10 are unincorporated band communities, where the NWT provides municipal services, all related to the First Nations in the area. They are: