Fort Smith, town in Fort Smith Region, southwestern Northwest Territories, Canada, on the Slave River, near the Alberta border. Fort Smith is a shipping and regional administrative center and serves as a gateway to Wood Buffalo National Park. Most of the town's residents are employed in government, tourism, or fur trapping. The settlement, established in 1874 as a Hudson's Bay Company post, is named for Donald A. Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, an official of the Hudson's Bay Company. Fort Smith was incorporated in 1966. The town served as the administrative center of the Northwest Territories from 1911 to 1967, when a territorial capital was established in Yellowknife. Population 2,460 (1986); 2,441 (1996).
