Birding in Northern Frontier

The Great Slave Lake area attracts hundreds of thousands of migrating waterfowl to its islands, bays, marshes and wetlands. This area combines parts of all four recognized North American flyways – Atlantic, Missisippi, Central and Pacific for birds that migrate to the Arctic each summer.

North of Yellowknife, Behchoko and Whati, geese, ducks and swans nest and breed each summer. The North Arm is popular with gulls, terns, red-breasted mergansers and mallards. Loons, terns and jaegers populate the islands at the mouth of Yellowknife Bay. Large numbers of bald eagles make their headquarters between Yellowknife and the East Arm.