The Yellowknife River is a river in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It flows south and empties into Yellowknife Bay, part of Great Slave Lake, at the city of Yellowknife. The lake is drained by the Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean as part of the largest drainage basin in Canada. The name of the river derives from the Yellowknives Dene, a First Nations people that have lived in the area for thousands of years.