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The NWT government says it has updated Atlas, the “interactive web map viewer” that provides a sense of land availability and ownership in the territory.
What is happening to any given piece of land in the NWT can sometimes be a complicated matter.
Settled and unsettled land claims, mineral rights, community boundaries, land leases, environmental concerns and other factors combine to govern what you can and can’t do with a parcel of land.
Atlas exists to help people figure out who administers the land, who has an interest in it and, ultimately, whether land is available or not. (People hoping to one day have a cabin in the wilderness have been known to spend idle hours scrolling wistfully through Atlas for possible sites.)
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On Wednesday, the GNWT said the latest version of Atlas will “improve access to current information about the availability of land.”
Atlas now uses a “new data system,” the GNWT said in a news release, that “may display updated terminology for easier understanding.”
The territory said “all interests are now contained in a single layer” within Atlas, meaning the system can more clearly show whether land tenure is pending – in other words, if some sort of application is actively being reviewed – or active.
The news release also stated a new layer “displays open applications for subdivisions (surveys), making it easier to see where subdivision applications exist and to track their status.”
Users of Atlas might experience delays loading it as improvements are made, the GNWT stated.
Atlas is now more than 20 years old. It can viewed on the GNWT’s website.
