Aurora Viewing in Yellowknife, Canada

Aurora viewing in Yellowknife is consistently more reliable than in many other places in the world. So if watching Aurora Borealis—-aka the northern lights—-is on your bucket list, read on!

These dazzling light displays are created by solar storms magnetically drawn toward the Earth’s atmosphere by its northern pole. In Canada, this magnetic ring (auroral oval) hovers above the cities of Yellowknife (Northwest Territories), Whitehorse (Yukon) & Churchill (Manitoba). Here’s why Yellowknife has the advantage.

8 Reasons why Aurora Viewing in Yellowknife Beats other Destinations:

* Yellowknife sits directly under the Auroral Oval at 62.5° N, perfect positioning for most intense activity
* Its interior location is far from mountains and coasts resulting in more stable weather and FAR less clouds (which hide aurora)
* Has an abundance of clear, dark skies compared to Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Fairbanks
* No light pollution
* First Nation teepees (which make great foreground subjects)
* 95% chance of seeing aurora 2 out of 3 nights (Autumn thru Spring)
* Is MUCH more affordable than Churchill, Manitoba; Fairbanks, Alaska, Iceland & Norway
* Easy to reach, just a 2 hour flight from Calgary in Alberta, Canada

Moon rising behind teepee at Morning Star lodge

Best Season for Aurora Viewing in Yellowknife

Aurora occur year round up here. But the sun radiates day and night certain times of the year, making it impossible to see aurora from late spring through summer (mid April to mid August).

The best time to see the most amazing Aurora in Yellowknife is around the equinox—in October and March. This is when the aurora love to dance across the sky, creating the most vivid colors and swirling formations.

September and February months tie for a close second.

Autumn verses Winter:

Autumn: warmer temps mean you can watch the aurora in jeans and a sweater. And lakes aren’t frozen—which means you can see those dancing patterns reflected in the water like the Great Slave Lake.

Winter: bitter cold temps mean you must dress for the Arctic, and that your camera needs a little extra lovin’ too. Batteries die quickly and may cause your camera to shut down in response to the subzero temps. Surrounding lakes are all frozen, so expect them to be solid white. The only chance of a reflection is if you find a patch of clear ice on the Ice Road, but most tours do not go there.

Overview of  AURORA TOURS

There are two types of tours for Aurora Viewing in Yellowknife: hunting by bus or lodge based. Both last 4-5 hours. And both tours bring guests somewhere along Ingraham Trail, the lone highway departing east of Yellowknife that passes numerous ponds, lakes and tributaries before abruptly ending at Tibbit Lake 43 miles later. (In winter, Ice Truckers travel across this frozen lake to haul heavy equipment to the diamond mines.)

Many operators hire young, enthusiastic, multi-lingual seasonal guides from Asia, especially Taiwan, who are genuinely excited to see the Aurora Borealis alongside of you. They’re trained to use Canon gear and gleefully take photos of their guests.

Despite Yellowknife’s small size (20,000 population), there are over 60 different licensed tour operators selling aurora viewing tours through their websites, Tripadvisor or Viator. Some have packages that include lodging and even arctic clothing.

Frankly, it can be a little overwhelming trying to decide which tour to take!

Differences:

Tours vary widely—by size, location and amentities. Some lodges are just 15 min from town, while others are an hour away. One large scale operation transports up to 200 people to their spacious teepee village each night. Others max out at 12 guests.

Larger tours may be less flexible extending the end of the tour since they have more guests to take home. You might be forced to board the bus at midnight to begin the long ride back — juuuust when the northern lights magically appear. Some tours stay out as long as the guests want, until the aurora wane or all agree to go home.

A few tour operators are Aboriginal-owned and provide the opportunity to teach participants about their Dene culture by sharing stories, drumming, and even their food–bannock bread and traditional fish– while waiting for the aurora. One even includes a mini ride on a snowmobile tobaggon to reach their camp.

Among the lodge tours, the bases vary from heated teepees, cozy cabins, pole barns, or wooden buildings. Some have indoor plumbing. Others outhouses. Some serve fish stew, hot dogs, salty snacks, candy, maple cookies or fish jerky. One has a bar that serves maple whiskey or Icewine. And an option to rent heated seats. Some have dress up furs and clothes. Snowshoes. Or informative displays. One even has a scientific research station. And another uses heated ice fishing huts as their lodge.

So many choices!!

How do you decide? Well, first, narrow down the biggest difference. Choose between a bus tour or a lodge tour.

*Many of the tour operators put together packages that include lodging at one of the major hotels, optional arctic clothing, and 3 nights of aurora viewing with them. Sounds great, but you’ll be stuck with ONE company the entire time and have the same repeated experience. Why not sample different tours each night?

Aurora seen from Tracy’s cozy cabin

Aurora Hunting by Bus OR Lodge Based?

Here are some things to consider.

Visibility. First of all, if there are no clouds or snow hiding the Aurora, the northern lights will be visible whether you are standing beside a bus in a parking lot 40 minutes down Ingraham Trail road or at a remote cabin in the woods. The idea of ‘hunting’ for them is silly. It they’re out, they’re out!

Just drive away from Yellowknife to reduce any light pollution straying from town. (Locals will tell you that you can see them in town on active nights, but darker skies really are best for clearer visiblity.)

Secondly, the bus drivers ‘hunting’ for them tend to go to the same locations each night. Usually public parking lots near lakes off of Ingraham Trail road. So there will likely be other buses, minivans or cars besides your group. The best chance of straying away from crowded lots would be joining a smaller minivan tour that hunts the aurora in more private locations. Lodges are also located somewhere off Ingraham Trail, but nestled in the forest, away from the highway. And far from any other lodge, so your group will have complete privacy with no noise or light pollution.

And then there’s comfort.

It can be a long cold night. Are you OK with being confined on a bus with no bathroom access? And gathering outside as a group until rushed to the next destination hoping the lights will appear stronger there? Or, do you prefer the option of roaming around a lodge property on your own, doing your own thing at leisure—knowing you’ll be there for hours, can set up shots, experiment more, and go inside anytime for warmth, food, hot drinks or bathrooms?

And what about the quality of photos you capture? Good photos take time. Especially in the dark, wearing gloves! No doubt you’ll be fumbling in the cold, trying to set up your tripod, camera, checking your settings, finding a foreground subject to add interest in the frame under the aurora, eliminating clutter in the background, experimenting with faster shutter speeds…

Since hunting by bus tours tend to stop at public parking lots, light pollution from other cars and buses can be a problem. And the lights from guides taking pictures of their guests. Plus the wires, parking signs, garbage bins, and telephone poles don’t make great backdrops. And dreaming up ideas to shoot something that adds storytelling composition or reveals your particular destination–other than just aiming at the sky–takes effort and thought. But limited time at each of the 3 stops can crush creativity. Especially if  you’re wasting precious minutes fiddling with your tripod and camera settings in the dark under constantly changing skies.

The final consideration is cost. The hunting by bus tours range from $67 for minivan tours (like this 5 hour tour with Yellowknife Vacations) to $120 for big bus tours (like this 4 hour tour with North Star).

Lodge based tours range from $90 (like this 5-6 hour tour at Morning Star’s spacious lodge with teepees) and $94 (like this 4-5 hour tour at Tracy’s cozy cabin that includes fish stew) to $130 (like this 4 hour tour where guests share heated teepees at Aurora Teepee Village). Or this $120 5 hour tour at a Dene camp on the shores of Great Slave Lake where guests can listen to drumming, hear stories from indigenous guides and taste cooked fish.

Our Experience Viewing Aurora in Yellowknife

My daughter and I flew to Yellowknife in mid-March (a little earlier than the equinox, but dates coincided with her college spring break). We spent 4 nights here, and reserved both types of tours.

We were most excited about our Dene lodge based tour, which included travel over the Ice Road to Dettah, a indiginous community on the shores of Great Slave Lake. But, unfortunately, a week before we arrived they emailed us that it was cancelled. No tours that week. Tribal council reasons. (Yellowstone is the capital of the NW Territories.)

So, we chose another for our first night and selected another lodge based tour. After a fair amount of digging online, I found a company that didn’t surface easily in the search engines. I was drawn to pics of teepees on Morning Star’s website, even though it clearly caters to Asian clients, evident from client pics and Mandarin/Cantonese text. And I’m so glad I did!

Night One: Aurora Lodge & Aurora Hunting Tour

Morning Star lodge has 5 teepees on their property, located off Ingraham Trail, 20 minutes from town. Their heated lodge is an authentic trappers’ cabin, spacious enough for 50 guests. Plenty of space to spread out at one of the 8 tables. Indiginous clothing, local furs and snowshoes decorate the wooden walls, and are available as props for onsite photo shoots. (We booked the $90 tour on Viator, which has the same photos but false information (you don’t hang out in heated teepees or have an indigenous guide to share stories). Transportation from your hotel, B&B or vrbo rental included.

Hunting

At times we gave in to the guide calling us over to “come take a photo.” Taking long exposures with her Canon on a tripod, she used her phone light to illuminate faces. (She tirelessly took photos of anyone who wanted them— all night long. And, according to my daughter, texted links the next day.)

Trappers Cabin and Teepees

We returned to our little vrbo house rental after 2:30am, and happily collapsed in our beds.

Night Two: Aurora Hunting by Bus Tour

My daughter, Jordan, decided she had no interest going on a cold bus tour. So she stayed back, watched a movie and went to bed by ten. The freezing temps are intense! But I had booked an Aurora by hunting bus tour with an indiginous guide ($120) and was eager to see them again.

Our Dene guide drove a large bus, jam packed with tourists (not a single seat left), and headed out of town along Ingraham Trail. We stopped at 3 locations during the course of the night. Each stop was a parking lot facing a frozen lake, indistinquishable from the last. There were no foreground subjects. And the background was tainted with telephone poles, wires, trash bins, parking signs or semi trucks zooming by, their headlights destroying long exposures of a dark sky.

The bus felt cold and confining for the 4 hour tour. There was no sense of adventure. No chase. Or ‘hunting’ going on.

And the tales, legends and stories about his indigenous people and drumming promised on the website was reduced to a single story. His grandmother told him that the appearance of Aurora meant that the spirit of a recently deceased soul was dancing in heaven to let those on earth know that all is well.

Instead of sharing about his Dene culture, which I really wanted to hear, the guide’s conversation centered around sports and celebrities he’s befriended over the years.

I didn’t get a decent picture the entire night. Aurora were visible. But his choice of locations to wait for the northern lights to get stronger was not interesting in any way. And the fact that the parking lots were small further confided our space. There was nowhere to roam away from the guide standing in the lot taking pics of his passengers, shining a light to illuminate their faces as they lined up for the included professional photos.

Headlights of truckers barreling down Ingraham Trail road

At our last stop, no one got off the bus. We sipped from dixie cups half full of hot chocolate and ate a maple cookie. An English family sitting across the aisle from me had 2 young children that slept most of the night. This was their 3rd and final night in Yellowknife–on the same tour. Curious, I asked if they’d seen the magnificent aurora display last night from the solar storm that erupted after midnight. But they were already back in their hotel room by then. (Cringe. I didn’t dare share what they missed.)

As soon as I got home, I cancelled another bus tour I’d booked for my final night. If this was tripadvisors top rated bus tour, I certainly didn’t want another. Even though I lost money on non-refundable spots, I gladly reserved another night on the lodge-based tour we experienced the night before.

Night Three: Aurora Viewing from a Cozy Cabin

The Cozy Cabin on this Aurora tour is 15 minutes from town off of Ingraham Trail, not far from the airport. The rustic cabin, set amidst thick trees on a quiet property, has a wood-fired stove and 4 wooden tables with benches. Groups are kept small, and average 10-16 guests, even though the cabin can accommodate 24 people.

A bus picked us up from our vrbo rental at 9pm. The driver was a man from the First Nations Dene community, who works in the diamond mines. We would later enjoy a conversation over fish stew, learning about diamond mining production and his role traveling around the world to teach other mining companies about his advanced techniques.

Our tour group included 2 Chinese families, a middle aged couple, and a newlywed couple that had been on my hunting by bus tour the night before (and vocally negative about it).

Tracy’s cozy cabin under the aurora

When we entered the cabin, Tracy, the owner, was busy preparing food. Jordan and I had already spent the day with her on a wonderfully informative 4 hour City Tour (as the only guests) so she felt like a familiar friend. She gave everyone an overview of the night, and invited us to wear any of the fur coats, stoles or hats that were hanging on the back wall for photos. Then we all headed outside to watch the aurora.

A perk about this tour is that Tracy is eager to keep children happy and occupied while their parents spend time outdoors viewing the aurora. She provides coloring books, games, pictures and maps for them and will even create a make-shift bed for sleepy ones by stacking furs on wooden benches. At midnight, she calls everyone together and serves fish stew and homemade bannock bread with sweet jams.

On Tracy’s property there’s an outhouse beside the trapper’s cabin, but no teepees. We wandered down a little hill away from the cabin to an area that is marshy in summer months, and sunk to our knees in soft snow. The stars were strong. Flashes of green intermittently colored the inky sky.

Up by the cabin, the driver took photos of anyone who wanted one, but I was busy photographing on my own. And coaxing Jordan, wrapped in furs, to walk through deep snow to pose for me.

People would come out to watch the aurora awhile, then go back inside sporadically throughout the night. The beauty of being lodge based. Cold? Go inside. Sip something hot, chat around the warm stove, play a game or try on the fun furs. Change batteries or lenses under lights.

Maybe it’s a fear of missing out. But I wanted to stay outside. And tonight I was better prepared for the cold. I rubber-banded hand warmers around my camera lens to prevent my camera from seizing up in the freezing temps. And wrapped a scarf around my tripod head, since knobs froze and I couldn’t remove my camera the first night. My feet never got cold once in Yellowknife, thanks to my trusty Baffin boots. Fingers, however, were more fragile at 30 below. Yes, they got cold. But I never exposed bare skin to operate my camera, which I think is the trick to staying outside.

Is it me, or do you see a wolf?

Several times I noticed that I was the lone soul out in the cold photographing the aurora. Around midnight everyone else was inside. But the aurora was strong, creating wild shapes like an interpretative picture show. Guess what I am?

Now it looks like an alien dancing!

Tracy came out twice to check on me. That’s her nature. A warm and gracious host who cares about her guests. When she lamented that my fish stew was getting cold, I finally went in. Others had finished their soup but were still nibbling on warm bannock bread smothered in fruit jam. She’d made fresh bread for each booking, and wrapped up leftovers for us to take home for breakfast.

Around 1:30am we boarded the bus and headed back to town. Another successful night of aurora viewing in Yellowknife!

Night Four: Aurora Lodge & Aurora Hunting Tour

Our last night of aurora viewing in Yellowknife was with the same tour operator as our first night. And when the bus picked us up at our vrbo rental, our Taiwanese guide was genuinely happy to see us, hugging and greeting us by name. Welcome back!!!

When we stopped at the Explorer hotel and Chateau Nova, the 2 major hotels used by operators in their 3 night packages, a large group of Chinese tourists boarded. Again we were the only non-Asian guests on the bus, which we didn’t mind in the least. Tonight our group was 35 guests. This was their 2nd night in their 3 night package. So we were all repeat customers and knew what to expect.

We stopped at 2 locations along the way, different from before. One faced a lake where a ice fishing hut sat on the frozen ice beside a truck. You could hear voices of the people gathered outside admiring the sky, despite the great distance from shore. The aurora was visible, but limited to single design in the sky, localized and hardly moving.

Reaching the lodge a little while later, we choose a table and organized our gear from hand warmers and extra glove liners to camera equipment. Then headed outside.

Aurora over our bus at the Morning Star lodge

The night proceeded much like the time before. Our guide was just as enthusiastic, the lodge just as inviting, the property just as alluring…

And although the aurora didn’t put on quite the same performance as that magical first night, she did appear, dancing in a slower sort of way, gently and gracefully in a beautiful ballet, gradually taking longer breaks off stage until her final curtain call, when it was time for all of us to go.

Bravo, Lady Aurora…thank you for your show!

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