There is a federal territory in Canada called the Northwest Territories. Northern Canada’s Northwest Territories include many islands, including Banks, Prince Patrick, and Victoria, with several others held jointly by the territories and Nunavut, including Melville and Victoria. There are enough lakes in the Northwest Territories that freeze over in winter to make the total area even bigger than France, Portugal, and Spain combined. In the Northwest Territories, Yellowknife is the capital, the only city, and the largest community. Many First Nations and Inuit inhabited the area that became the Northwest Territories before Europeans arrived. On July 15, 1870, the Northwest Territories, which constituted a portion of the North-Western Territory, became part of Canada. Natural resource exploitation continued to shape economic development in the Northwest Territories through the early 21st century and the diamond-mining and energy industries. The largest national park in Canada is Wood Buffalo. The park covers a larger area than Switzerland, making it the second-largest in the world. Since its establishment in 1922, the park has protected the world’s largest herd of free-ranging hybridized wood bison, which now number more than 5,000. Two nesting sites of whooping cranes are known to exist. It is also North America’s most ecologically diverse and largest example of the prairie-boreal ecosystem.