CAChurchill, Manitoba, Canada
Polar bears waiting for the ice
Six hundred bears in one town, and the aurora directly overhead.
Watch it live firstWhen the light is best
August, July, June
Computed from five years of daily cloud, rain and temperature at 58.76, -93.22. Some cloud is what makes a sky burn, so this is not the same as the driest month and often disagrees with one.
- Cloud then
- 60%
- Wet days
- 9
- Daytime high
- 18°C
When to actually go
Bears gather from mid October to late November. The aurora runs the whole season and is best on the clear cold nights.
This is the window for the reason you are going, and it is a different question from the light. Where the two disagree, this one wins. An empty river under a perfect sky is still an empty river.
- Nights
- 5
- Getting in
- Winnipeg, then the train or a charter north
- From, per person
- $8,200
Why here
Churchill sits where the bears gather every autumn waiting for Hudson Bay to freeze. It is also directly under the auroral oval, which means the same trip that gives you polar bears in daylight gives you northern lights at night. Almost nowhere else stacks two once in a lifetime sights on the same five days.
What you actually do
- Tundra vehicle out onto the Churchill Wildlife Management Area
- Aurora watching from a heated dome, most nights
- Dog sledding on the tundra before the freeze
- The Itsanitaq Museum, which is small and worth an hour
However many of you
On your own
Operators run shared tundra vehicles, so a single traveller pays no premium and is never alone out there.
Two to six
Six is the sweet spot. Everybody gets a window seat on the vehicle without chartering the whole thing.
Seven or more
A group of twelve or more can charter an entire tundra vehicle, which means you set the departure time and stay out for the light rather than the schedule.
Book it
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