Yellowknife
Canada
A small capital on Great Slave Lake, under the aurora oval, where January averages minus thirty at night
Photo by Emily Hon on Unsplash
Photos by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦, Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦, Luke Moore and Ian Keefe on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Canada
Late August to early October for the aurora over open water, and December to March for the deep-winter sky
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 40mm in Aug
Where it is
62.45°N, 114.37°W Open in Google Maps
Things to do
Several days- Book three or four nights of aurora viewing rather than one, because cloud is the usual reason people miss it
- Come in early autumn if you would rather see the lights reflected in open water than stand in minus thirty
- Drive the ice road to Dettah once it is officially open, and not before
- Walk up to the Bush Pilots Monument at dusk for the view over Old Town and the bay
- Eat fish and chips made from this morning’s lake catch
- Ask your tour company for their cold-weather clothing rather than buying it
Yellowknife travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Canada
ExpensiveCards work everywhere, aurora tours and taxis included. The Northwest Territories charges no territorial sales tax, so only the 5% GST is added at the till. Food and fuel cost noticeably more than in the south because they come up a single highway or by air.
ATMs & cards
The big banks have branches and machines downtown. The private machines in bars, hotels and convenience stores add their own fee on top of your bank’s, and you will rarely need cash anyway.
Avoid these
- private machines in bars, hotels and convenience stores, which add their own fee
Use these instead
- RBC
- CIBC
- Scotiabank
- BMO
Close to cashless. The Northwest Territories adds no territorial sales tax, only the 5% GST, and it is added at the till rather than shown on the shelf.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Canada
SafeThe cold is the risk. Minus thirty-five is ordinary in January and minus forty happens; exposed skin freezes in minutes, so wear the parka and boots the tour operator lends you and cover your face. Aurora viewing means standing still outdoors at night for hours, which is colder than any walk. Summer is wildfire season — the whole city was evacuated in 2023. Nobody can promise the lights; give it three or four nights.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (7 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- Downtown Yellowknife — around Franklin Avenue late at night, when the bars empty
- The cold on an aurora night, standing still for hours at minus thirty, which is a different thing from walking in it
- Lake ice off the official ice road, which nobody has measured
- Wildfire smoke and evacuation orders in a dry summer
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Canada visa rules
Travel authorisation requiredup to 180 daysC$7
An eTA is required to fly to Canada and is valid five years. It is not needed if you are arriving by land or sea. Apply only through the canada.ca site — C$7 is the whole fee.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 180 days
Visa required in advanceC$100
A visitor visa, applied for online with biometrics.
How to get it: Apply for the eTA at canada.ca; most are approved within minutes but some are held for days, so do it well before booking anything non-refundable.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Before you fly: travel authorisation
Electronic Travel Authorisation (eTA)RequiredCAN$7
Before you book, ideally. Most are approved in minutes.
Have these in front of you before you start:
- passport
- a credit or debit card
- an email address
Valid five years or until the passport expires. Anyone flying in needs one; driving across does not.
Use the official link above. Sites that charge a "service fee" to submit one of these for you are not the government, and they want the same passport details the real form does.
Travel tipsHealth & emergencies all of Canada
Good but costlyRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Routine vaccinations up to date
Getting treated
Excellent, and expensive for visitors — there is no reciprocal arrangement with most countries, and an emergency admission runs to thousands of dollars. Travel insurance with a high medical limit is essential. In the Rockies, mountain rescue is coordinated by Parks Canada and is not billed, but the helicopter and hospital that follow are.
Wildlife and weather rather than illness. Carry bear spray on trails and know how to use it. Hypothermia is possible in any month at altitude, and snow closes passes well outside winter.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
DecentFish out of Great Slave Lake — whitefish, lake trout, pickerel — is the local food, and Bullocks Bistro in Old Town is where people send you for it. The Wildcat Café, a log cabin from 1937, opens in summer only.
Travel tipsGetting around
Car needed- UberWorks here
- LyftWorks here
- BoltNot here
- Against a taxi
- A little under the meter, and thinner on the ground in the cities that allowed ride-hailing late.
Outside the cities the apps thin out quickly, and in a small northern town the local taxi on the telephone is the answer.
Time zone and your working day
America/Yellowknife — 2 hours behind you
6 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 11:00–17:00 your time, 09:00–15:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 11:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 11:00–19:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Canada
Why these are Canada's numbers and not Yellowknife's
Home broadband — Fast. Several people on calls at once, large uploads, 4K. Broadband here runs at 2× the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Fair. Maps, calls and streaming; tethering a laptop works for an hour, not a day. Mobile runs at 79% of the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Yellowknife, so these are medians for all of Canada. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Travel tipseSIM
A data eSIM for Canada, installed before you fly and working the moment you land:
Works here
Works hereRevolutIn the app
Must-see
Travel tipsNearby day trips
Travel tipsSay a few words
Canadian English
- A one-dollar coinA loonieLOO-nee
- A two-dollar coinA toonieTOO-nee
- A knitted winter hatA toquetook
- The last item takenThe last one, sorry
4 more phrases
- A rural cottageA cabin, or a chalet in the Rockies
- Right? / Agreed?Eh?ay
- Bear sprayBear spray — carry it, actually
- Washroom, not toiletWhere’s the washroom?
The language is English; the vocabulary occasionally is not.
Travel tipsReligion
Christian majority, and secular
Christian by heritage with a fast-growing share reporting no religion. Indigenous spiritual traditions are recognised, and their sites carry protocols worth respecting.
Travel tipsDo's and don'ts
Do
- Queue properly, hold doors, and apologise reflexively — it really is the norm
- Tip 15-20% in restaurants and for taxis; staff wages assume it
- Carry bear spray on Rockies trails and know how to use it
- Take note of which province you are in — rules on alcohol, cannabis and driving differ
Don't
- Do not assume Canada is a variant of the United States; it lands badly
- Do not approach or feed wildlife, and never get between a bear and its cubs
- Do not underestimate distances — the Rockies are far bigger than the map suggests
- Do not litter or leave food out at a campsite; it is both a fine and a genuine danger
Where to stay in Yellowknife
No Holistay rentals in Yellowknife yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Yellowknife on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Yellowknife YZF
10 minfrom the airport· 4 km as the crow flies
10 min to downtown by taxi.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
