A Last Look at the Auroras of Churchill

I’ve been visiting Churchill, Manitoba during winter aurora season since 2014. But this was my last year for standing under its fabulous Northern Lights.

From February 21 to March 4, 2025 I was at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre for my annual visit serving as an instructor to visiting aurora tourists. I’d been doing the program for ten years, with a year off in 2021 when no one visited!

But I decided this was to be my last year, as it was time to “retire” and turn over the program to a new generation of instructors.

So here I present my last look at the Churchill auroras.

Churchill, Manitoba is on the shore of Hudson Bay at a latitude of 58º North in the sub-Arctic.

It lies under the normal location of the “auroral oval,” the ring around the North Geomagnetic Pole where there is almost always some aurora happening, even on a quiet night. Churchill is as far south as the auroral oval appears in the world when the oval is in its normal state.

By visiting a site under the oval, aurora tourists are almost guaranteed a show, provided the sky is clear.

In winter in Churchill, the cold usually brings clear skies. In a decade of conducting programs I’ve only ever had one group clouded out for all five nights of the program. That’s a far better average than locations such as Iceland.

While several excellent travel companies and local businesses offer aurora tours to Churchill, signing up to one offered by the Northern Studies Centre offers some major advantages.

Notably, guests stay at the Centre, some 20 kilometres outside of Churchill on the site of the old Rocket Range. That makes the site dark and free of light pollution.

And convenient. Guests sleep on site and need only dress up warm to quickly head outside when the “Lights are out!” call comes. Instructors wake up guests when the Lights don’t appear until late at night, as can often be the case. There’s no driving out to dark sites to wait for the Lights to appear.

An option is also to head up to the CNSC’s rooftop aurora dome for viewing the Lights in warm shirt-sleeve comfort.

But most guests opt to bundle up and brave the cold for the best experience and unobstructed views of the Lights filling the sky. A convenient option is the second floor observation deck, shown above, and in an image taken from the deck, below.

The program includes nightly science talks about the aurora and night sky. The daytime program includes dogsledding, snowshoeing, a tour of the old Rocket Range, and visits to sites in Churchill such as the murals and museums. It’s a very full five days of programming and learning.

To learn more, visit the CNSC’s Learning Vacations page for the Winter Skies program.

The main attraction, the aurora, can vary from night to night. However, even when the aurora is weak, as it was this night, above, it can still put on a fine show for the camera, glowing in red colours that only long exposures reveal.

While I use high-end cameras and fast lenses, I’ve been impressed with how well today’s phone cameras can capture the Lights very simply and easily, as a guest is doing above, especially when the aurora is bright.

When the aurora brightens, greens and sometimes pinks are visible to the eye, and not just to the camera. And the aurora exhibits rapid rippling and waving motions (check the video below).

The finest sight is when the aurora curtains converge overhead at the zenith for a “coronal outburst.” The effect can be fleeting but the sight is unforgettable. It is one of the finest sights the sky can offer, ranking with a total eclipse of the Sun.

Indeed, on most nights the aurora, which might begin as a low arc across the north, moves south to fill the sky with swirling and curling curtains, as below.

A gallery of my images from Churchill from this year and from past years is on my main AmazingSky.com website here.

A musical collage of still images and real-time videos I shot this year is viewable here on YouTube.

It’s been a great ten years taking in the wonderful Northern Lights in Churchill. While this was my last year, I encourage you to visit to see the sights for yourself.

Everyone goes away with great memories, able to check the aurora off their bucket list of experiences.

— Alan, March 10, 2025 / AmazingSky.com