About The Courses by starman
Churchill Manitoba is the best place on planet Earth to see northern lights. I have been happily travelling to Churchill for twenty years to give 5-day courses on Northern Lights and Northern Astronomy. There are two ways to get to Churchill. I have experienced the romantic 36 hour train trip through the seemingly endless boreal forest and over the slow-rolling tundra. My preference is to hit the runway of old Fort Churchill Military Base in a small commuter aircraft. As we land, the town of Churchill is nearby to the north-west and the Churchill Northern Studies Centre (CNSC) is about 17 miles to the east along the Hudson Bay shoreline. CNSC is on the site of the rocket range where extensive auroral research was done in the 50’s and 60’s. Course participants use the same dormitories the auroral scientists once used and eat in the same kitchen-dining area. (Don’t tell anyone, but that old kitchen is where the real course takes place). A 12 foot diameter heated observing dome is perched on the second story above the kitchen. It was once used by the rangemaster to oversee rocket launches into the aurora. Now, course participants may comfortably spend hours viewing aurora from the dome.
Nightly, as Churchill glides under the “auroral donut” that sits like a glowing crown atop the north pole, we see a ghostly greenish-white auroral light strenghtening in the north-east. Aurora is best seen when the sky is dark, so courses are given near New Moon to eliminate the brilliant moonlight of the northern winter sky. After all, the point of the course is to see aurora. Since winter nights at 58 degrees north latitude are very long, there is plenty of opportunity to see the lights in January, February and March. Courses have been presented during favourable New Moons in November, the end of bear season in Churchill. In early winter, clouds rise above the open water of the bay and drift over the coastline making observation difficult. And, of course, there are the bears. Armed lookouts are required during bear season whenever someone ventures outside, and that includes the group that just wants to stand in the parking lot watching the blazing aurora dance overhead.
It is at those times in CNSC parking lot, that I sometimes ask my students, many from the southern states, bundled tight against the cold, “How will you tell the folks back home about this experience?” Rarely am I given an answer other than, “I don’t know.” I have seen many photos and videos of the lights, but nothing can approach the experience of standing in that parking lot with those lights dancing and changing colours or snaking overhead in a winding river of light, bright enough to read a book. Showing the lights to those who have seen them rarely, or never at all, is my richest secret reward. There is a closing line in an auroral video I use in the course that sums up my feeling about the northern lights. The speaker says, “ I just love them.”
