Ekati Airport — Ekati, Canada

Ekati Airport (YOA) serves the Ekati Diamond Mine in Canada's Northwest Territories, one of the country's first and most significant diamond mining operations, located deep in the barren-lands tundra roughly 300 kilometers northeast of Yellowknife. The airport exists exclusively to support fly-in fly-out mining operations, moving workers, equipment, and supplies to a site with no permanent road access, relying instead on seasonal ice roads for heavy cargo. YOA's runway can accommodate substantial cargo aircraft necessary for delivering mining equipment to this isolated Arctic tundra location. The discovery of diamonds at Ekati in the 1990s triggered a broader diamond mining boom across the Northwest Territories, transforming the territory's resource economy.