The Horton River is a river

River

A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...

 in Inuvik

Inuvik Region, Northwest Territories

The Inuvik Region is one of five administrative regions in the Northwest Territories. The region consists of eight communities with the regional office situated in Inuvik...

 and Sahtu

Sahtu Region

The Sahtu Region is one of five administrative regions in the Northwest Territories in Canada. The region consists of five communities with the regional office situated in Norman Wells. With the exception of Norman Wells the communities are predominately First Nations.-Communities:The Sahtu Region...

 Regions, Northwest Territories

Northwest Territories

The Northwest Territories is a federal territory of Canada.Located in northern Canada, the territory borders Canada's two other territories, Yukon to the west and Nunavut to the east, and three provinces: British Columbia to the southwest, and Alberta and Saskatchewan to the south...

 and Kitikmeot Region

Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut

Kitikmeot Region is an administrative region of Nunavut, Canada. It consists of the southern and eastern parts of Victoria Island with the adjacent part of the mainland as far as the Boothia Peninsula, together with King William Island and the southern portion of Prince of Wales Island...

, Nunavut

Nunavut

Nunavut is the largest and newest federal territory of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. It is a tributary of the Beaufort Sea

Beaufort Sea

The Beaufort Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after hydrographer Sir Francis Beaufort...

 and hence part of the Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...

 drainage basin

Drainage basin

A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...

. Only the first few kilometres from its source are within Nunavut.

Course

The river begins at a small lake about 100 kilometres (62 mi) north of the northeast Dease Arm of Great Bear Lake

Great Bear Lake

Great Bear Lake is the largest lake entirely within Canada , the third or fourth largest in North America, and the seventh or eighth largest in the world...

. It passes through the Smoking Hills

Smoking Hills

The Smoking Hills are located on the east coast of Cape Bathurst in Canada's Northwest Territories, next to the Arctic Ocean and a small group of lakes. The cliffs were named by explorer John Franklin, who discovered them on his 1826 expeditions...

 and reaches its mouth on the east side of Cape Bathurst

Cape Bathurst

Cape Bathurst is a cape and a peninsula located on the northern coast of the Northwest Territories in Canada. Cape Bathurst is the northernmost point of mainland Northwest Territories and one of the few peninsulas in mainland North America protruding above the 70th parallel north...

 at Franklin Bay

Franklin Bay

Franklin Bay is a large inlet in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is a southern arm of the Amundsen Gulf, southeastern Beaufort Sea. The bay measures long, and wide at its mouth. The Parry Peninsula is to the east, and its southern area is called Langton Bay.Franklin Bay receives the...

 on the Amundsen Gulf

Amundsen Gulf

Amundsen Gulf is a gulf located in Canadian Northwest Territories, between Banks Island and Victoria Island and the mainland . It is approximately in length and about across where it meets the Beaufort Sea....

 of the Beaufort Sea, where it forms a small delta

River delta

A delta is a landform that is formed at the mouth of a river where that river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, flat arid area, or another river. Deltas are formed from the deposition of the sediment carried by the river as the flow leaves the mouth of the river...

, about 125 kilometres (78 mi) northwest of the community of Paulatuk. The mouth had been 100 kilometres (62 mi) further north at Harrowby Bay on the west side of Cape Bathurst until about 1800 when a meander

Meander

A meander in general is a bend in a sinuous watercourse. A meander is formed when the moving water in a stream erodes the outer banks and widens its valley. A stream of any volume may assume a meandering course, alternately eroding sediments from the outside of a bend and depositing them on the...

 eroded through. There is an airstrip just north of the mouth.

DEW Line/NWS

Located about 8.5 km (5.3 mi) north northwest of the rivers mouth, at 70°00′59"N 126°56′35"W, lies the Horton River Short Range Radar Site (BAR-E), also known as Malloch Hills. Originally opened as a Distant Early Warning Line

Distant Early Warning Line

The Distant Early Warning Line, also known as the DEW Line or Early Warning Line, was a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic region of Canada, with additional stations along the North Coast and Aleutian Islands of Alaska, in addition to the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland...

 site it closed in 1963. The site was reopened in 1991 as a North Warning System

North Warning System

The North Warning System is a joint United States and Canadian radar system for the atmospheric air defense of North America. It provides surveillance of airspace from potential incursions or attacks from across North America's polar region...

short range radar.