page_title: Yellowknife
section_title: Emergency services
hierarchical_section_title: Yellowknife / Infrastructure / Emergency services
caption_attribution_description: RCMP HQ in Yellowknife
context_page_description: Yellowknife is the capital, only city, and largest community in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about 400 km south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the outlet of the Yellowknife River.
  Yellowknife and its surrounding water bodies were named after a local Dene tribe at one time known as the "Copper Indians" or "Yellowknife Indians", today incorporated as the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, who traded tools made from copper deposits near the Arctic Coast. Its population, which is ethnically mixed, was 19,569 per the 2016 Canadian Census. Of the eleven official languages of the Northwest Territories, five are spoken in significant numbers in Yellowknife: Dene Suline, Dogrib, South and North Slavey, English, and French. In the Dogrib language, the city is known as Sǫ̀mbak'è. Modern Yellowknives members can be found in the adjoining, primarily Indigenous communities of Ndilǫ and Dettah.
  The Yellowknife settlement is considered to have been founded in 1934, after gold was found in the area, although commercial activity in the present-day waterfront area did not begin until 1936.
context_section_description: Policing in Yellowknife is provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP); Yellowknife is the headquarters for G Division, and houses more than 30 officers.
  The City of Yellowknife Municipal Enforcement Division (MED) is responsible for municipal bylaw infractions and traffic infractions (within city limits). The Yellowknife Fire Department handles the city's fire, ambulance, rescue, and hazardous materials responses. A point of debate in recent years has been the implementation of 911 services in Yellowknife (currently one may now dial 911) through a partnership with five other Northwest Territories communities; the cost of installation is currently estimated at around $1 million a year. There have been a number of incidents where emergency services have been either misdirected, or improperly dispatched. Health services are provided through the local Stanton Territorial Hospital. The Yellowknife Primary Care Centre has a broad range of practitioners including physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, counsellors, dietitians and more. Services provided at the Yellowknife Primary Care Centre include mental health, diabetes education, diagnostic imaging, psychiatry and some home care services.
caption: Headquarters for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) G Division who provide policing in Yellowknife.
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