Hay River tourism operators are ready to welcome approximately 130 delegates to the NWT Tourism Conference and Annual General Meeting in November. Situated on the southern banks of Great Slave Lake at the mouth of the Hay River in Canada’s Northwest Territories, the town of Hay River is also known as the Hub of the North.
Hay River is located on the Wood Buffalo Route, your road to Wood Buffalo National Park, which protects one of the largest free- roaming bison herds in the world and the earliest “tourists”, the Inuvialuit and Inuit arrived about 4,000 years ago. The destination offers inspiration and adventure in Canada’s magnificent Northwest Territories.
The region is famous for major outdoor thrills, from dogteam rides to fishing to whitewater rafting, and for natural wonders, from World Heritage parks to the dazzling Northern Lights. Our sport fishing is the best in the world, bar none. The drive is famous for wildlife viewing and you will even pass through Wood Buffalo National Park and likely see several bison by the road.
The annual conference moves to different NWT communities every 3 years. The theme of this year’s conference is “feeding the fire.” Aboriginal groups will soon be invited to prepare a feeding the fire ceremony to open the conference, said Julie Warnock, NWT Tourism’s communications co-ordinator. The conference venue will be Hay River’s Don Stewart Recreation Centre. As part of the town’s bid to host the conference, the town offered use of the recreation at no cost to the organizers. “It’s going to be full with our marketing campaign presentations to professional development opportunities to workshops, open discussions amongst the industry, and we will have an opening reception where we will feature some of the local entertainment and we’ll be bringing some aboriginal tourism speakers to the event this year, too,” Desjardins said.
Past NWT Tourism ambassador Adam Beach, star of the highly-rated CBC Television drama Arctic Air, is scheduled to attend, Desjardins said. “Hay River is blessed with more tour operators than most other communities, with the highest number of tour operators in the NWT in the Yellowknife area, so we’re hoping that we’ll get some good attendance to Hay River.
Larger hotels offer generous conference facilities and the area has limitless outdoors options. Renowned fly-in lodges are an exciting option for incentive travel and teambuilding in unique locations, and though they may be out of range of cell phones, many have all the high speed internet and are just one day away from most major Canadian and U.S. cities.
Hay River is accessible by plane through two airlines. There are approximately 21 commercial flights departing each week and several more small aircraft flights each week.
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