A Last Look at the Auroras of Churchill

I present a 3-minute video collage of still images and real-time videos (no time-lapses) of the Northern Lights taken from the Churchill Northern Studies Centre near Churchill, Manitoba, over several nights from February 22 to March 1, 2025.

During that time I was an instructor for two aurora tour groups talking part in a 5-night program to enjoy the Lights by night and winter activities by day at the Centre and tours in the town.

I have served as an aurora instructor at the CNSC each year since 2014 (with a year off in 2021!), taking over from the previous instructor, Roger Woloshyn, who started the program with the CNSC in the 1980s. So it has been a long-running program, pre-dating even organized polar bear tours in Churchill.

But after a decade of helping to conduct the program, I decided this was my last year. It was time to retire and turn it over to a new generation of aurora experts!

Churchill, Manitoba, on the shore of Hudson Bay, is under the auroral oval where, if it is clear (which it often is in winter, though cold!), there’s always some level of aurora visible. During my stay in 2025 the aurora activity level never got higher than Kp3 or so (on the scale from Kp1 to 9). And yet we still got impressive shows.

While several fine companies offer aurora tours, the CNSC is a great choice I can recommend, as guests stay on site some 20 km outside of the town away from its street lights. The location is on the site of the old Churchill Rocket Range once used to study the aurora. At the CNSC, viewing the Lights is a matter of just stepping outside (after you dress up warm!), though a plexiglass aurora dome allows the option of shirt-sleeve viewing.

For details, visit the CNSC’s website at https://churchillscience.ca/visit/lea... and look under Winter Skies for the aurora tours. But they also offer sessions in June for birding, in summer for the beluga whales, and in autumn for the polar bears.

Technical:
I shot all images and movies with the Nikon Z6III and one of three lenses: a 7.5mm f/2 TTArtisan fish-eye lens, a 10mm f/2.8 Laowa ultra-wide angle, and a 16mm f/1.8 Viltrox.

Music is “Eyes of Yours” by Edgar Hopp, licensed through Epidemic Sound.