Fort Providence, Canada

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American Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin (1786-1847) chose Fort Providence as the starting point for his journeys of discovery to the Barren Grounds in 1819-22. At the western end of town stands a memorial to the American explorer Sir Alexander Mackenzie, who stopped off in Fort Providence in 1789 in the course of his putative trek to the Pacific Ocean which he hoped would take him to the Arctic Ocean.

The Mackenzie Bison sanctuary lies north of Fort Providence on Highway 3 in the direction of Rae-Edzo. In 1963 the Canadian Government transferred here nineteen wood buffalo, a species threatened with extinction. This, the only herd of these buffalo still in existence in North America, has since grown to many hundred. Anyone driving along Highway 3 in the early morning or evening is almost certain to see one or two wood buffalo at the roadside. Mostly, though, they stay near the shores of the Great Slave Lake.