They are fully 111Km apart: 60˚ latitude, dividing the the Provinces (west of the Hudson's bay), and 61˚, the only integer longitude which lies between Yellowknife and Whitehorse. So although I am only going to 62˚08' north, it remains further north than 61˚, as well as the more evident 60˚ of latitude which arbitrarily divide our provinces and territories.
Northwest Territories was not always bound by 60˚ N. It stretched to the US, bound only by British Columbia to the West, and the Saint Lawrence River Valley to the East after a land transfer between the Hudson's Bay company to the Government of Canada in 1870. The company was compensated £300,000. This exchange would have taken place in 1869 but was setback due to an uprising in the Red River Settlement. Northwest Territories was an amalgamation of Ruperts Land surrounding the Hudson's Bay and the former North Western Territories, but was left to be whittled over the years to come.
It was perhaps foresight which allowed the 60˚ division to become the arbitrary border that remains today. The addition of the short-lived Stickeen territory cut into the territory's girth when created in 1862, and extended up to 62˚ latitude. When Stickeen was resorbed by BC, the division was settled at 60˚. It is the nearest whole integer latitude south of the southern extent of the Great Slave Lake, located at 60˚ 49'. Therefore, when this border was traced across the country, the largest lake in Canada, and the communities surrounding it, remained in the same Territory.
So then was it arm-waving and simplification that lead to the one-significant-figure division between our western Provinces and Territories? We all know that in the south of the provinces the division settled on a not-so-even number at 49˚ (the latitude of my birth).
Thus, I start my journey up North, better informed about borders, to a place slightly more North than Whitehorse. More updates to come.
Kent