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With its location directly beneath the auroral oval, a magnetic field surrounding the North Pole, Churchill (map) enjoys northern lights for up to 300 nights a year.

The unique displays are produced by a combination of atmospheric gases and solar wind, which creates waves of green, purple, red and blue that illuminate the sky. Different gases produce different colours, though the yellowish green (above) emitted by oxygen molecules nearly 100 kilometres above the Earth is the most common.

Indoor viewing is available at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, a subarctic educational institute that is home to some of the current research on the auroras.

In ancient times, many people feared the displays, believing they held the power to kill. While stories seem to shift like the lights themselves, some say First Nations groups whistled toward them to conjure the dead. Greenland Inuit believed the lights represented stillborn children, while Alaskan Inuit viewed the displays as spirits of the animals they hunted, including seals, salmon, deer and beluga whales.

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