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Northland Utilities has been lighting up the North for more than half a century. Northland buys power generated by the Northwest Territories Power Corporation (NTPC) - a Crown corporation of the NWT Government - and then distributes the power to its customers. The power poles, power lines, insulators, transformers and streetlights you see overhead are owned and maintained by Northland.  Northland Utilities has two operating divisions - Northland Utilities (NWT) Limited and Northland Utilities (Yellowknife) Limited.

Northland Utilities (NWT) Limited began serving Hay River in 1951, beginning with just 96 customers. The system grew steadily, interrupted in 1963 when a major flood occurred. Today, it provides electricity to approximately 2,500 customers in Trout Lake, Kakisa, Dory Point, Fort Providence, Snare Lake, Wekweti, Enterprise, Hay River and K’atlodeeche First Nation. An interconnecting transmission line from Pine Point to Hay River, completed by Northland in 1988, allows Northland to receive surplus electricity from the Talston hydro system. Northland maintains a back-up generating plant with six units to serve the Hay River system.

Northland Utilities (Yellowknife) Limited celebrated its 16th anniversary of service to Yellowknife in 2009. Today, it supplies power to approximately 8,000 customers in the Yellowknife and N'dilo area.

Northland Utilities can trace its roots back nearly eight decades, to 1927. That was the year that an entrepreneur named Walter Schlosser came to Indian Head, Saskatchewan and established Northern Light and Power Limited. Over the next couple of decades, Schlosser and a partner, Warren DuBois, developed power systems for a number of young Alberta and Saskatchewan communities.

Their work eventually culminated in the incorporation of Northland Utilities in 1945, the same year that the new company acquired several power plants and distribution systems from Dominion Electric Power Limited. These included the Alberta communities of Jasper, Athabasca, McLennan and Peace River, Dawson Creek, BC, and Winnipegosis, Manitoba. Most of these were small isolated plants and, in those days, roads and railroad transportation were unreliable. There were numerous instances when fuel supplies were jeopardized by poor road or rail conditions.

In June, 1961, Canadian Utilities (CU) acquired control of Northland Utilities through an exchange offer to the holders of capital shares of Northland. CU’s principal investments for many years were in Alberta-based gas and electric utilities, principally Canadian Utilities Limited (Alberta Power), Northwestern Utilities Limited and Canadian Western Natural Gas Company Limited. By then, Northlands had electrical operations in 31 communities in Alberta, the NWT and northern Saskatchewan, as well as natural gas operations in 17 communities in Alberta and BC.

The Northland name disappeared for a while in 1972, when shareholders ratified the transfer of the company’s gas and electrical distribution operations to Northwestern Utilities and Alberta Power, respectively.

Canadian Utilities Limited, the parent company of Northland Utilities, integrated its electrical services in 1972 under the name Alberta Power Limited. By that time, Northland was supplying power to Hay River, Enterprise and Fort Providence. Northland disappeared when it went into voluntary liquidation, but the name lived on in many people’s minds.

ATCO acquired a controlling interest in Canadian Utilities Limited from CU International of Philadelphia in 1980.

The Northlands name was revived in 1983 as the official name for Alberta Power Limited’s newest subsidiary, serving all Northwest Territories customers formerly served by Alberta Power. Northland Utilities (Yellowknife) Limited was created in 1993 when Northland Utilities purchased the Yellowknife electrical distribution system from Centra.

Today, Northland Utilities is 14 per cent owned by the northern investor, the Denendeh Development Corporation (14%). Other North of 60 ATCO companies include ATCO Structures & Logistics Ltd., ATCO Midstream, and The Yukon Electrical Company Limited in the Yukon Territory.