we have a wood stove in the basement of our backsplit. while not NWT (just west of orangeville), it does the job of keeping the house warm without running the furnace until it gets to -25 or so. ceiling fans help move the air around.
what i find works really well is to take advantage of convection (warm air rises, cool air falls) by placing a fan on ground level of the floor and pointing it down into the basement. This accelerates convection by forcing cold air into the room with the wood stove, displacing the hot air in that room, and the hot air has no place to go but right back up the stairs along the ceiling. you can see this by placing a piece of paper at the bottom -of the landing even with the fan off you will see the cold air going into the basement and, at the top of the landing, the hot air returning.