What’s Yellowknife like?

Hey - I worked up there for 3 summers and 1 winter. It’s a pretty cool place; you earn a lot of money but you spend nearly all of it because the cost of living is high. The people are pretty great and if you like outdoor activities and drinking beer and having bbq’s you’ll be at home. The bugs are absolutely brutal in the summer though, and the summer is very short. The winter… I didn’t like it at all. Painfully cold, dreadfully dark. Overall though, I have very good memories of YK

As someone who was born and raised here…it’s meh. It seems like a good place to raise a family but I’m childfree and if you’re not an alcoholic or avid outdoors person, it’s pretty boring.  It’s lacking a LOT. The closest city is 1600km away. It’s super expensive to live (both real estate and cost of living) The weather usually sucks. I’d prefer to live in a similar size town near a larger city for better amenities, quality of life and cost of living, but no luck in leaving the North as of yet. 

Career prospects are great though. This is the place to start and advance your career. 

Born and raised here.

There are plenty of jobs in toronto and the GTA so you’re clearly looking for something specific. We are a territory not a province, being open to other areas in the NWT isn’t gonna work for you if your moving north, Yellowknife or Whitehorse are your only bets, especially being from the city. One can not simply Move to a community and You want the amenities, believe me.

If you’re looking for a house to buy. You’re looking in the wrong place. It’s 400k for a trailer, you’re much better off to go to Alberta for that, get a yard, garage basement and 2 floors for only 300k. Housing is also incredibly limited. The lack of educational institutions in the local area means moving from Ontario to Yellowknife to take up a job slot and a house permanently lowers the local class or forces locals south, which often affects indigenous peoples negatively.

I feel the general consensus from torontonians is that there’s no one up here so there’s room up here to work and live. Not the case. Most people from Toronto I meet won’t even move to north bay let alone Yellowknife.

Yellowknife has jobs yeah. But most of them aren’t lucrative. The cost of living is driving up by the 1% working at the mines making 160k/year vs the 80% of people working multiple jobs under 50k a years just to afford an apartment.

What education and not importantly experience do you have? Taking a degree that you’re unable to apply in Toronto isnt going to automatically mean the jobs available here are going to be in your field.

In Yellowknife it’s not what you know it’s who you know. The more white collar your field, the more trouble you’ll have without knowing people ahead of time. If your more trades and industry based, I’d recommend northern Saskatchewan.

If you’re dead set on Yellowknife, do yourself a favor and visit first. The midnight sun and northern lights are cool at first, But the city is expensive as Toronto or Vancouver and has a tiny footprint for the amount of drunk homeless tweekers, walking around. I think you’ll be surprised in both directions.

Good luck 🤞

Have lived here (and other towns in NWT) all my life. Agree with the general sentiment here: the natural setting is beautiful, regardless of season although summers lately are marred by so much forest fire smoke. Most of the people who wind up here are great.

The town has some quaint spots, but overall the town is a shitty place to be, city administration is utterly completely incompetent, rent and utilities prices are out of control, it’s extremely dificult to get regular doctor or consistent health care (you are shuffled around a medical team and each new locum who looks at you has no awareness of what your last locum concluded), homelessness and drug issues have been ignored for so long that residents have just given up and accept it now and avoid downtown (it’s actually dangerous), and frankly there is a sense of impending shut down as the diamond mines wind down without any economic alternatives on the horizon.

We have left Ontario for Yellowknife some years ago and don’t regret it. House prices are comparable to the Ottawa Valley (finding something with a decent sized backyard or a garage is harder though), the groceries are not more expensive, some of the staples even a bit cheaper. I found it much easier here to find a decent paying job - when you manage to get a gov job you’re set. Something to consider is the wildfire situation, it’s been tough last year and I’m not sure how this year will be

Please don't. Unless you plan on staying and investing in the north, please stop encouraging people to come up for a year or two, take the paycheck and leave. The high turnover is detrimental to our community, and it's getting harder to have sympathy for the lack of employment opportunities in the south when southern settlers come and take the money and then leave. We already struggle with resources and funding, and y'all are actively making it WORSE.

Lived here over 30 yrs. Was beautiful back in the day but is horrible now. Last summers evacuation reminded me how much we truly lack. Want to move so bad but am trapped in this nightmare.

Dusty, dirty, drug ridden, now 3 murders in 2024. If it’s a popular store you can expect drunks hanging out in front of it. If you are into nature/hikes/basic outdoors stuff then this could be the place for you. Camping from May to Sept at the parks located outside the city and one in the city limits which has powered sites, no water/sewer, the other parks are no service(No Power/water/sewer), some of the best Aurora viewing anywhere… best outside of the city limits where light pollution doesn’t interfere with viewing. So to cut things short, in city, Bad…. Outside of city…. GOOD.

The health care system is shit.

I moved here four years ago, originally from Ottawa. Housing is generally expensive but if you have a government job then it’s a pretty good cost to income ratio (I make about 75k a year and got a home for 240 a couple years ago). But if you want a stick built house or something with a yard the price will spike a lot. I’ve met a fair amount of teachers and would say the education quality is good but teachers often move here for only a few years so that may be a toss up. Healthcare is slightly more difficult to access than in Ottawa (in terms of getting a family doctor) but there are a few walk in clinics that are easy to get appointments for. If you need a specialist that is more complicated because they’re often not here all year and if it’s urgent you may need to go to Edmonton and the government won’t always cover the whole cost. Jobs are easy to come by because we’re often short on workers. The best paid jobs will be with some form of government. I work for the City of Yellowknife and they have pretty good salaries and benefits for the cost of living. Yellowknife is often about who you know so if you can get connections first they can definitely help you find work, and if you have any questions about working for the city, I’m happy to answer them, just send me a message :)

residents of 25years and up are the greatest barrier to new people enjoying a quality life here in the knife, self entitled pricks, great place to visit terrible place to live. IF you think your better than others you will fit in perfectly.

When I moved here 20 years ago it was exactly like what you were looking for, unfortunately it is now the complete opposite. Truthfully, it's terrible now. Housing market, job market, crime, etc.

Violent crime in yellowknife is one of the highest per capita in canada, it always smells like burning wood (summer forest fires, winter wood stoves), there is never a normal amount of sun, it's always cold, everything is expensive, there's nothing to do, and the internet fucking sucks

😂

Housing is at its worst right now. Do not move here unless you can afford to buy a house. The best you will find for renting is a roommate starting at $1500 a month, plus utilities. Food is expensive.