| Fort Providence | |
| Native Name: | Zhahti Koe, Zhahti Kue |
| Native Name Lang: | den |
| Settlement Type: | Hamlet |
| Pushpin Map: | Canada Northwest Territories#Canada |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | Canada |
| Subdivision Type1: | Territory |
| Subdivision Name1: | Northwest Territories |
| Subdivision Type2: | Region |
| Subdivision Name2: | South Slave Region |
| Subdivision Type3: | Constituency |
| Subdivision Name3: | Deh Cho |
| Subdivision Type4: | Census division |
| Subdivision Name4: | Region 4 |
| Leader Title: | Mayor |
| Leader Name: | Danny Beaulieu[1] |
| Leader Title2: | MP |
| Leader Name2: | Michael McLeod |
| Established Title: | Hamlet |
| Established Date: | 1 January 1987 |
| Area Land Km2: | 255.05 |
| Elevation M: | 160 |
| Coordinates: | 61.3547°N -117.66°W |
| Population As Of: | 2011 |
| Population Total: | 695 |
| Population Density Km2: | 2.7 |
| Timezone: | MST |
| Utc Offset: | −07:00 |
| Timezone Dst: | MDT |
| Utc Offset Dst: | −06:00 |
| Postal Code Type: | Canadian Postal code |
| Postal Code: | X0E 0L0 |
| Area Code: | 867 |
| Blank Name: | Telephone exchange |
| Blank Info: | 699 |
| Blank2 Name: | Prices |
| Blank3 Name: | - Living cost |
| Blank3 Info: | 137.5 |
| Blank4 Name: | - Food price index |
| Blank4 Info: | 134.7 |
| Footnotes: | Sources: Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre,[2] Canada Flight Supplement 2013 figure based on Edmonton = 100[3] 2015 figure based on Yellowknife = 100 |
Fort Providence (Slave (Athapascan);: Zhahti Koe, Zhahti Kue|lit=mission house) is a hamlet in the South Slave Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. Located west of Great Slave Lake, it has all-weather road connections by way of the Yellowknife Highway (Great Slave Highway) branch off the Mackenzie Highway, and the Deh Cho Bridge opened November 30, 2012, near Fort Providence over the Mackenzie. The bridge replaced the ice bridge and ferry, enabling year-round crossing of the river.
Fort Providence hosts the annual Mackenzie Days celebrations in August each year.
Fort Providence was founded in the 1860s as a Catholic mission site. By 1868, the Hudson's Bay Company, which previously has a trading post at Big Island at the source of the MacKenzie River, moved the post to the location of the mission site. From that moment, the settlement was known as Fort Providence. In 1867, the Grey Nuns opened a boarding school and an orphanage in the settlement. Instruction languages were English and French, and most of the nuns originated from Quebec.[4]
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Fort Providence had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of 255.49km2, it had a population density of in 2021.[5]
In 2016, the majority of its population, 620, were Indigenous people, made up of 590 First Nations, Dene people, and 30 Métis.
The Dene of the community are represented by the Deh Gáh Got'ı̨ę First Nation[6] and the Métis by Fort Providence Métis Nation.[7] Both groups belong to the Dehcho First Nations.[8]
Fort Providence has a continental subarctic climate (Dfc) typical of the Northwest Territories' populated areas. It is marked by a long cold winter season and short, warm summers, that in many ways are warmer than expected for an area so far north. Transition seasons are extremely short, with temperatures rising and falling quickly in respective seasons.