Northwest Territories

A vast claim of lands in the tundra and arctic spaces of North America, beginning as the North-Western Territory, this being those lands claimed by the British that did not fall under the jurisdictional authority of Rupert's Land, the grant of the Hudson's Bay Company; which became the North-West Territories (Northwest Territories) after the corporate grants were relinquished and the lands were passed to the Canadian federal government, continuing to contract over time as districts were taken under the local jurisdictions of certain provinces, or founded as entirely new provinces, including Alberta and Saskatchewan, and new territories, including Yukon and Nunavut.