My Travel Journal: Yellowknife Canada Part 1 - Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights)

Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) has been on my bucket list for many years.

In the early 1980’s I was shocked and speechless when I saw the northern lights on a color TV in China. Right then a seed was planted in this little girl’s mind
“Someday, I will find the Aurora Borealis" (The Northern Lights)

China was disconnected from the rest of the world then, and ordinary Chinese were making 50 Yuan per month…(less than $10 USD) and I didn’t know much about other places around the world, but I knew some day I would make my dream trip. Years went by, I now live in the USA and I am able to start my bucket list. I wanted to start early in life, before I am old and can’t move.

Viewing the Aurora Borealis was on the top of my list for 2016.

Iceland is the first place most people think about when you say Northern Lights and that typically is the best place to go. I did not want to fly that distance, Seattle to Iceland (10 + hours), since I had I just got over 3 months of persistent vertigo being in a plane for that long was not what I wanted.
The next best place was Yellow Knife, Canada, the capital of the Northwest Territories, located on the north shore of the Great Slave Lake and approximately 400 km or 250 miles south of the Arctic Circle, and only 4 hours from Seattle.

5 Nights in Yellowknife

The first two nights the clouds would role in right as the sun started to set and stuck around all night long. The first two trips we booked were cancelled because the probability that we could see the Aurora these nights was very low. This gave us an opportunity to tour and visit the city of Yellowknife.

On the third night we still had clouds but we took the chance to see the lights, we were not guaranteed to see anything is what our guide Joe told us. Joe is the first one to start Aurora hunting in Yellow Knife. He was raised by his grandparents on the south and north shore of the Great Slave Lake. It was nice to hear that Joe is a true Yellowknife’s Dene native, he knows the Aurora lights.

We set off in the evening and were immediately in a race with the clouds.

The clouds were rolling in as the night sky fell upon us. We raced down the highway west of Yellow Knife. We ended up keeping in front of the clouds as we would stop get out take some pictures and then the clouds would role in again.

So we would get back into the van and drive down the snow and ice covered roads to get to the next clearning.

By the time the tour was over at 12:30 am we had driven 120 Km so we sat back had some hot chocolate and cookies and enjoyed the ride home looking at the pictures we took. The hunting tour was the only way to see the lights on this night. We got lucky to find Joe and his hunting tours.
To find Joe and his tours you can go to his web site.
North Star Adventures

The fourth night we met up with Sean

Sean is from Vancouver, Canada, and moved to Yellow Knife, purchased a B&B and does the Aurora Hunting tours with his guests; we were not staying with him but got lucky and Sean had room for us on our fourth night. Sean has a special made Ford wagon that has sky lights over each seat so you can sit in the car and stay warm and still see the lights.

With Sean's tour there is no time limit

I think Sean loves the lights and hunting as much as his guests if not more. He picked us up from our hotel at around 9:30 pm and we were greeted with our special order hot drinks. I had hot chocolate and Scott had hot apple cider. This night we were not fighting the clouds, still there was no guarantees we would see the lights. Sean has his secret spots on the lake we were driving on 1.5 meters of frozen ice. Several hours passing by with little activity the lights started to appear around 12:00 am. Then around 1:00 am the show really started. Sean looked at the formation of the Lights and said

“That indicates we are going to get some exciting activity soon.”

Then there was an explosion of lights that started over our head.

We could not take it all in even with our eyes wide open. It was -20 C and we were excited cold and trying to get our pictures and experience the whole thing.

Looking straight up, and every direction the whole sky was just popping with lights, curtains and colors. It seemed that each minute the show just got better and better. The lights moved across the sky from one direction to the other and then back again. Our necks were getting tired from looking straight up at the sky. We wanted to lay down on the ice but it way too cold.

Then it happened the hot chocolate started to kick in and I had to go take a killer pee. But there is no place to go when you are parked in the middle of a frozen lake with 5 other people around. After holding it as long as I could I asked to go so I could relive myself. This was almost 3:00 am and the show just kept going on above us, all the way back to Yellowknife we watched the show continue.

Sean and his trips can be found at Seans guest house.

Travel Tip: When going to view the Northern Lights stay at least 3 nights to have best chance to view them.

Keep a look out for the next post on what to do in Yellowknife during the day and some interesting facts we discovered.