Limo and chauffeur service across Northwest Territories

What a chauffeur can do in the Northwest Territories, honestly

The Northwest Territories are served through vetted partner operators in Yellowknife - fixed fare, flight-tracked, chauffeur at the door - and by arrangement for Hay River, Fort Smith, Fort Simpson and Inuvik, where the roads exist and an SUV with an overnight is quoted. This page says plainly what is bookable: the Yellowknife airport transfer, the aurora evening and the city's hourly service are ordinary reservations on the engine; the highway drives are itineraries the desk builds by hand with a partner who drives them; a stretch limousine is not available in the territory and the desk will say so. Yellowknife, Dettah, Behchokǫ̀, Hay River, Fort Smith, Fort Simpson, Norman Wells and Inuvik are the addresses the engine knows.

The airport

Yellowknife's airport is five kilometres from downtown and ten minutes from any hotel in it, with the Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Whitehorse and Ottawa flights and the aurora charters from Japan, Korea and China in winter; Inuvik's serves the Delta and the Dempster; Hay River, Fort Smith, Fort Simpson and Norman Wells serve the regions and the mines. The Yellowknife transfer is on the airports page and on the engine, with sixty minutes of waiting on an international charter and thirty on a domestic arrival, and the partner's car warm at the curb - which at minus forty in January is the whole point.

The highways, the ice roads and the corridors

Highway 3 links Yellowknife to Behchokǫ̀ and the Mackenzie Highway south to Hay River, Alberta and the rest of the country - the only road out; Highway 5 runs to Fort Smith and Wood Buffalo; Highway 1 to Fort Simpson and the Liard; the Dempster and the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway reach the Arctic coast from the Yukon; the winter ice roads to the diamond mines and across the lakes are a season of their own. The desk prices each as a fixed fare with the return and the overnight built in where needed.

Figures are approximate and the drive times assume summer conditions; the desk prices the exact address and the season, and the ice-road drives are quoted individually.

The aurora season

From late August to April Yellowknife is the aurora capital of the continent - the city sits under the auroral oval, the skies are clear and the winter is dry - and the aurora evening is the territory's booking: a transfer from the hotel to a viewing site or a lodge outside the city's lights, the chauffeur waiting in a warm vehicle through the two or three hours the show takes, the return at midnight or later. It is priced by the hour with a minimum on the hourly chauffeur page, the partner's vehicles carry the extra layers and the hot drinks the season needs, and the peak weeks from December to March are booked in the autumn.

The winter and the summer

Yellowknife's winter holds at minus thirty for weeks and reaches minus forty; the sun is up for five hours in December; the roads are snow-packed and the partner's vehicles run winter tyres and block heaters and are warmed before every pickup. NWT highway conditions are read before any highway itinerary and the ice roads are a matter for the partner's judgement, never the passenger's schedule. The summer brings the midnight sun, the Folk on the Rocks festival in July, the houseboats and the floatplanes on Great Slave Lake, and the Ingraham Trail's lakes.

The diamond-mine sector and the corporate account

The diamond mines and their Yellowknife offices, the territorial government and the Indigenous governments, the mining and exploration companies, the federal departments, Aurora College and the hospital, the tourism operators and the aurora lodges: the corporate account's one monthly invoice covers the YZF transfer, the crew-change morning and the executive's aurora evening, through the same partner and the same standard.

The occasions

The Yellowknife weddings and the lakeside summer weddings, the June graduations, the Snowking's winter festival on the lake in March, the Long John Jamboree, Folk on the Rocks, the Arctic Winter Games when the territory hosts: the wedding, prom and nights out pages cover the categories and the desk builds the northern versions by hand.

The rules a passenger might want to know

Chauffeurs hold the territory's Class 4 licence for taxis and small buses and the vehicles carry commercial passenger insurance; the City of Yellowknife licenses the operators. Winter tyres are not required by law but the partner's vehicles run them. Child restraints are required by the Motor Vehicles Act by weight and height, and the seat is fitted at no charge when it is noted at booking. The drinking age is nineteen and alcohol in a vehicle is not permitted; there is no partitioned limousine in the territory.

What a chauffeured car costs in the Northwest Territories

Fixed by the addresses and the vehicle class, shown before you book. YZF to downtown Yellowknife in a sedan or SUV is the territory's most-booked transfer; the aurora evening and the city day are priced by the hour with a minimum; the Hay River, Fort Smith and Inuvik drives are quoted by the desk with the overnight and the return built in. No surge in the aurora season, no meter, no gratuity added. The fleet page has the classes available in the south; the territory's partner runs sedans, SUVs and vans.

Inuvik, the Delta and the Arctic coast

Inuvik is reached by air from Yellowknife and Whitehorse or by the Dempster from the Yukon, and the partner there runs the airport transfer and the drive up the all-season highway to Tuktoyaktuk and the Arctic Ocean - a day's itinerary in an SUV with the return built in - in the summer's midnight sun and the winter's dark; the Yukon page covers the Dempster's southern end.

Two questions Northwest Territories travellers ask the desk

How cold is the car at minus forty? Warm; the partner's vehicles run block heaters and are started before every pickup, and the aurora evening's vehicle stays running through the show. Can we drive to Edmonton? In principle, over two days on the Mackenzie Highway; in practice the desk will recommend the flight and book the transfers at each end. A third, asked every autumn: the aurora peak from December to March fills the partner's cars, and the desk books them in September.

The Northwest Territories year, month by month

Booking notes by vehicle class in the Northwest Territories

The partner runs sedans, SUVs and vans, and the desk books the class to the trip: a sedan for the airport transfer and the city day, an SUV for the aurora evening, the Ingraham Trail and any highway itinerary, a van for a group or a family with the winter's luggage and the aurora's extra layers. There is no stretch limousine and no minicoach in the territory, and the fleet page describes the classes as they exist in the south; the booking page prices the Yellowknife transfers and the desk quotes the rest.

Three Northwest Territories itineraries the desk builds most often

The aurora evening. Hotel pickup at ten, the Ingraham Trail or a lodge outside the city's lights in twenty minutes, the chauffeur waiting in a warm vehicle with the engine running through the show, and the return at one - the hourly rate with a minimum, and the hourly chauffeur page has the rate.

The YZF transfer for the charter season. The Japanese, Korean or Chinese charter tracked from departure, the partner's vans warmed at the curb, the group and its luggage to the hotel or the lodge in ten minutes, and the aurora evenings booked through the stay - one plan, one invoice, and the airport transfers page has the mechanics.

The Tuktoyaktuk day from Inuvik. Inuvik pickup at eight, the all-season highway north across the tundra in two and a half hours in an SUV, the Arctic Ocean and the pingos, lunch in Tuk, and Inuvik by evening - a day's itinerary with the return built in, and the Yukon page covers the Dempster's southern end.

The Northwest Territories numbers a traveller might want

The Northwest Territories are home to roughly forty-five thousand people, half of them in Yellowknife; Yellowknife's airport handled more than five hundred thousand passengers in its last full year and sits five kilometres from downtown; the city lies directly under the auroral oval and reports clear skies on the great majority of winter nights, which is why the aurora charters come; and the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway, opened in 2017, is the country's first all-season road to the Arctic coast. The Department of Infrastructure, NWT highway conditions and Spectacular NWT publish the figures.

Book a chauffeured car in the Northwest Territories