The Northwest Territories has won female basketball gold for the first time in the Arctic Winter Games' 54-year history.

Team NT defeated hosts Alaska 64-45 on Friday afternoon, ending the five-game tournament undefeated.

"It feels so good knowing we worked so hard for this," said team co-captain Saia Brown. "We fought all week against these other amazing teams and we managed to come out on top and prove that all of our hard work, over months and months, it paid off. We're all super proud of how we played."

"I'm just thinking about all the girls that I've coached over the years that have helped get us here. It means a lot," said Aaron Wells, who has coached the NWT's female team at multiple Arctic Winter Games and Canada Games.

"We had great chemistry. We didn't rely on one or two people to score this year," he said.

Wells was showered with water and energy drinks as he attempted to enter the locker room of the victorious team.

Both Brown and fellow co-captain Abby Nevitt called the team "a family."

"We all have the same mentality. We keep on saying: goldfish mentality. We play one play at a time," said Nevitt. 

"We've been practising together for so long. We're almost the same team as last year. We all had the same end goal and we got it."

Team NT led for almost the entire encounter and was never in serious danger of surrendering its advantage. In the bleachers, a solid NWT cheer section outsang an oddly sparse home crowd in Wasilla, Alaska.

Wells, emotional at the sight of his team celebrating, conceded "a lot" of his life had gone into coaching – and this moment.

"In the gym three, four nights a week. Watching game film. On the road, away from my kids," he said, listing the commitment involved.

"So yeah. It's good."

The NWT's male basketball team plays Yukon for gold on Friday evening. The male team last won gold in 2014, also in Alaska.