Mayors, councillors and officials from capital cities across the country are gathered in the territory's capital for their annual conference.

Registration and a welcome reception Wednesday greeted the 36 delegates here for the Canadian Capital Cities Organization conference.

They began their more formal work this morning at the High Country Inn with panel discussions, presentations and other sessions.

"Over the next few days, municipal representatives will be joined by capital commissions, legislative representatives and tourism officials to discuss common issues," Mayor Bev Buckway said in a statement Wednesday.

"I would like to welcome all of our guests from the nation's capitals as well as Mayor Bruce Botelho from our sister city of Juneau, Alaska."

Botelho, who's now in his third term as mayor of the Alaskan capital, was set to address delegates at noon today before a workshop and tour of the legislature this afternoon. That will be followed by a gala dinner tonight at the Yukon Transportation Museum.

While delegates will stay in the territory's capital today, tomorrow they will leave travel outside city boundaries "for an all-day adventure on the White Pass and Yukon Route train for travel along Lake Bennett to the White Pass Station House at historic Bennett," the schedule says.

A session on marketing, military in the North and board meeting are also included in the schedule for Thursday.

Finally, as the conference wraps up back in Whitehorse on Saturday, there will be a 2010 host city breakfast with the City of Fredericton and the annual general meeting for the organization, which has a mandate of promoting political and economic issues and acting as a link among the nation's capital cities.

"This is an important event that allows delegates to expand their knowledge and experience of capital cities as the conference is rotated," Buckway said of the entire get-together.

The last time Whitehorse hosted the event was in 1997, a year after the Canadian Capital Cities Organization was formed.

In an interview last year when Whitehorse was awarded the conference, Buckway said she decided to attend the capital cities conference after a number of years when Whitehorse hadn't sent a representative.

While there can be significant differences in the various cities that belong to the organization, the one thing they share is that provincial/territorial legislatures, or, in the case of Ottawa, the federal government, are based in their communities, she said.

For many, that means additional costs.

For example, in Ottawa, she said, there's a substantial increase to bylaw enforcement when dignitaries are in town.

There are also benefits to being a capital, though, with tourists often making a point to visit a region's capital, she said at the time.