Snow Removal

The City of Yellowknife wishes to advise residents that in the event the city experiences heavy snow falls, the City may have no choice but to push snow from roads to the curbs in order to keep roads open to traffic. If this method is used, this will create a snow ridge across residents' driveways and snow on sidewalks, residents will have to shovel out their driveway entrances and if possible, help in cleaning the sidewalks. City By-law No. 4063 states that if residents are shovelling out their driveways, they must not put snow back onto the street as this can be a traffic hazard.

The City removes snow from Yellowknife's roads and where possible the sidewalks. Snow removal is generally performed once in residential areas and twice in the downtown core.

Snow removal operations involve a grader removing snow from roads and sidewalks. This process may result in a dropoff at residents' driveways.  The height may vary, depending on snow accumulation, but could be in the 100-300mm range (4-12 inches). Residents should plan on ramping their driveway to street level after snow removal as this is not performed by the City.

If driving before snow removal is completed, motorists should keep to the right of snow piles placed in the center of streets.

Residents must ensure parked vehicles are removed by midnight of the scheduled day or they  will be removed (towed).

The City carries out snow removal, snow ploughing and winter street sand placement (sometimes referred to as sanding) to increase traction on the road and improve pedestrian and motorist safety. The City carries out snow removal on a priority system. High traffic areas and areas close to schools have a higher priority than low traffic residential roads.

The City asks for your continued patience as we work towards removing snow from City streets. We have received requests from some residents to carry out snow removal on their street, however we are not able to do so. To accelerate a request would mean postponing snow removal from a street that has a higher priority. A few reasons why a street may have a higher priority are: high vehicle or pedestrian traffic, location of a school, street may be narrow (a public safety concern), trucked services, public or school bus transit, etc. We do however investigate resident concerns, and if snow removal is not scheduled to take place soon, the City will plough the road with a grader in an attempt to improve the condition of the road. In the meantime, please drive safely.

See our Sidewalk Cleaning page for information on snow removal from sidewalks.