Fort Smith

Fort Smith is a town in the far south of the Northwest Territories, on the Slave River near the Alberta border, historically an important transportation and administrative centre — it served for a time as the territorial capital before that role moved to Yellowknife. The town grew up around a portage that bypassed a series of rapids on the Slave River, a route long used for canoe travel and later for riverboat traffic supplying the North. Today Fort Smith is best known as the northern gateway to Wood Buffalo National Park, the largest national park in Canada (and one of the largest protected areas in the world), home to the world's largest free-roaming bison herd and the only natural nesting ground of the whooping crane.

Fort Smith has scheduled air service from Yellowknife via regional carriers, and is connected by road (Highway 5) which links to the Alberta highway network, making it reachable by car via Alberta as well as by air. There is no rail or scheduled bus service.

The town itself is small and walkable. A vehicle is needed for exploring Wood Buffalo National Park, which surrounds Fort Smith and extends over a vast area with limited, unpaved roads in places.

• Rapids of the Drowned and the Slave River rapids, a set of dramatic whitewater rapids on the edge of town, also notable for a large population of American white pelicans that nest and feed there — an unusual sight this far north.

• Wood Buffalo National Park, whose northern access point is at Fort Smith, protecting boreal forest, the Peace-Athabasca Delta, and one of the world's largest freshwater deltas.

• Salt plains and karst landscape features within the park, distinctive gypsum sinkholes and salt flats found nowhere else in Canada in this form.

• The town's Northern Life Museum and Cultural Centre, covering the region's fur-trade, transportation, and Indigenous history.

• Visit Wood Buffalo National Park to see free-ranging plains and wood bison, the largest herd of its kind in the world, and to explore the park's salt plains and karst sinkholes.

• Watch the white pelicans feeding at the Slave River rapids in summer, one of the northernmost pelican colonies in North America.

• Paddle or fish the Slave River, a popular activity for visitors and locals alike.

• Learn about the whooping crane's only natural nesting habitat, protected within the park (cranes themselves are rarely seen by visitors, as the nesting area is remote and restricted).

A small number of restaurants and cafés serve the town, with limited hours typical of a small remote community.

Options are limited to what's attached to the town's restaurants and a licensed venue or two; Fort Smith is not a nightlife destination.

Accommodation is limited to a small number of hotels/motels and some campgrounds in and around town, serving park visitors and travelers passing through.

Fort Smith has basic general stores and a small number of shops serving residents and travelers; this is a remote northern town rather than a shopping destination.

Fort Smith connects by road via Highway 5 into Alberta, making it a common entry/exit point between the NWT and the rest of Canada by car. Wood Buffalo National Park extends north toward Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, and Hay River/Yellowknife are the main onward destinations further into the Northwest Territories.