Start from 29 curated places around Yellowknife, CA, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Bullocks Bistro
Shack on the Old Town houseboat row serving pan-fried Great Slave Lake fish — pickerel, whitefish, Arctic char, lake trout — in a room covered wall-to-ceiling in graffiti from decades of customers. Cash-or-card, no-reservations, the visitor meal everyone remembers.
Sushi North
Downtown sushi room that has been the city's go-to Japanese kitchen for years — rolls, nigiri, tempura, and a quiet bar counter that's the easiest sit-down option mid-week. Tight room, consistent kitchen.
Trails & outdoors
Frame Lake Trail
Paved and gravel loop around the lake at the heart of downtown — roughly 6 kilometres ringing the legislature, the Heritage Centre, City Hall, and the residential neighbourhoods to the north. The everyday running and walking route locals do without thinking.
Cameron Falls & Cameron River Ramparts Trail
Two trails off the Ingraham Trail at roughly the 50-kilometre mark — the short boardwalk hike to Cameron Falls and a longer river-walk to the Ramparts canyon. Standard half-day drive out of the city.
Things to do
Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre
The territorial museum on the south shore of Frame Lake — the major cultural institution in the NWT, covering Dene and Inuvialuit history, the fur trade, the gold-rush era, and northern natural history. Free admission and large enough for a half day.
Aurora Village
Aurora-viewing operation about 25 minutes east of town with heated tipis around a small lake, a cafe, and viewing platforms set up for the nightly tour bus from the city hotels. The most-booked aurora experience in Yellowknife.
Landmarks & sights
Pilots' Monument (The Rock)
Granite outcrop in the middle of Old Town with a stone cairn honouring the bush pilots who opened up the north — the highest point in the neighbourhood and the 360-degree overlook of Great Slave Lake, the houseboats, and the float-plane base. Reached by a steep wooden staircase from Ingraham Drive.
Old Town & Ragged Ass Road
The original 1930s gold-rush settlement on the peninsula north of downtown — a cluster of shacks, painted houses, art studios, and the famous Ragged Ass Road street sign that has been stolen so often the city sells replicas. The houseboats in Back and Yellowknife Bay are the postcard view.