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Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, was one of the bucket list items for my wife and me. We decided to plan a trip to Whitehorse, Yukon, in Canada, hoping to see the Northern Lights. This post summarizes the experience, hoping to provide some insights if you are also planning a trip. This post uses Aurora, Aurora Borealis, and Northern Lights interchangeably.

About Whitehorse

Whitehorse is the capital of Yukon. What I didn't know was that it's also the largest city in Northern Canada. Whitehorse offers variety of activities/experiences including northern lights, wildlife, dog sledding, mountain biking, glacier air tours etc You can check out the Travel Yukon website for more information. We visited Whitehorse in September. The landscapes were stunning, with Fall colors all around.

Whitehorse

Planning

The key goal of the trip was to experience the Northern Lights. We figured that the best time to view the Northern lights in Whitehorse is between late August and mid-April. We decided to plan the trip around the second half of September to ensure that we are not too early into the season and, at the same time, are not dealing with snowy weather. With that set, we planned to stay for four nights in Whitehorse to give us a fair probability of viewing the Northern lights. Given we had a stopover in Vancouver, we decided that we'd also spend one night in Vancouver while returning.

Flight

We traveled from San Francisco to Whitehorse via Vancouver. The flight duration from San Francisco to Vancouver is roughly two hours, and the duration from Vancouver is approximately two hours and twenty minutes.
In retrospect, we would have done the following things differently:

1. We were too conservative in estimating the time needed for immigration in Vancouver. Aside from immigration, given we were traveling with a toddler, we wanted to have some buffer in Vancouver for feeding the baby, changing diapers, etc. Overall, we had a five-hour halt in Vancouver. However, immigration took hardly a couple of minutes, with us being the only family in the queue, resulting in us spending much time in Vancouver airport and reaching Whitehorse late.
2. We didn't look for local carriers between Vancouver and Whitehorse, resulting in a lack of flexibility in timings. Whitehorse is a small airport, and most carriers there are local. We settled with a halt of five hours because we booked the flight with the same carrier, and that carrier had limited flexibility regarding flights to Whitehorse. While returning, we had more options as we used a local carrier (Fly North) to fly to Vancouver and then used another airline to fly back to San Francisco.

Lodging

Initially we started looking for all-inclusive stays focusing on northern lights viewing and found Northern Lights Resort & Spa to be a good option. Unfortunately, for us, this option didn't work as we were traveling with our toddler daughter and the resort is exclusively for people over 16 years of age.

We started looking for hotels in downtown hoping we could book a Northern lights viewing tour. Initially, we booked a place in Edgewater Hotel and the staff recommended few local tour operators. However, after a lot of research, we couldn't find any tour that would allow an 18-month toddler.

We started looking for other options again. The owners of Northern Lights Resort & Spa were really nice and provided us with an option to rent a vacation rental. The vacation rental location was such that you could see the Northern Lights from the property if conditions permit. The only catch was that we needed to arrange our food for the stay. Finally, we found Boréale Lodge. This property had an aurora viewing deck to view the Northern lights and provided breakfast. The property also offered dinner at an additional cost. We went for this option given that most of the self-viewing properties were far from the city, and given we were traveling with a toddler, we wanted to make sure that we had some additional help from the perspective of food options in case we needed it.

Looking back, we are glad that we chose Boréale Ranch. Our hosts were extremely welcoming and made sure that our stay was comfortable. We had all kinds of strange requests, such as finding extra padding on the floor in case our daughter fell down the bed (she completely refused to sleep in the playpen), and the host was happy to help and turned our suite into a pillow fortress. The food was just amazing, and the hosts took care of all of our dietary restrictions. The views from our suite were stunning.

View from our Suite

Boréale Lodge

Car Rental

Initially, we were not sure if we wanted to drive at all. We planned to mostly stay around the resort or downtown and use some package tours to get around. However, it was clear that the package tours would not work for us. As we booked our stay in Boréale Ranch, we also booked our car rental. Here are a few takeaways from our experience:

• If you are booking from the US, we didn't find many US car rental companies. We could only find Budget Rental while searching via third-party car rental services. However, there are more options at the airport. In addition to Budget, you can check Fox and Driving Force car rental websites for more options.
• We rented from Budget, and they don't provide Car seats. In case you need it, you'll have to carry a car seat.
• Driving in Whitehorse was amazing. We went there during the fall; the views were terrific with fall colors. It's a different story if you plan to drive during Whitehorse winters, which I personally wouldn't want to do.

Itinerary

Day 1:

Started from San Francisco. Halted in Vancouver airport and boarded flight to Whitehorse after dinner. Unfortunately, there was a lot of delay for passengers to get their luggage in Whitehorse that resulted in us leaving the airport late (around 11:30 PM). We planned conservatively for Day 1 and booked our stay at a hotel just outside the airport.

Vancouver Airport

Around 45 minutes before landing, my wife noticed a streak of green lights around the horizon outside the window. We realized that we were looking at the Northern Lights :)

We couldn't capture a good picture, but it was already an amazing start for the trip.

Day 2:

Checked out from out hotel after having breakfast and got our rental car. Went to Walmart in downtown to ensure we have enough supplies of food, water, snacks etc. Had lunch in The Moose & Mountie, which was a nice, casual place that all of us enjoyed. After lunch, we headed over to S.S. Klondike which is a nice place to check out history of Yukon River area. We took a stroll around the beautiful Yukon River and found a Bald Eagle having its lunch.

S.S. Klondike

S.S. Klondike

Yukon River

Bald Eagle Having its Lunch

Day 2 Late Night (or Day 3 Early Morning):

I kept setting alarm every hour to check if the sky has cleared up and if Northern Lights are visible. The predictions in aurora app were not optimistic. At around 1:20 am, I started noticing bright stars in the sky. The cloud coverings had indeed cleared up. We got lucky and were able to view Northern Lights for the next 20 minutes

Northern Lights

Northern Lights

Day 3:

The key attraction for the day was Whitehorse Wildlife Preserve. We booked a VIP tour that meant we had a tour guide provide a preserve tour in a private vehicle. For us, it was convenient because we could pace our visit while keeping our toddler daughter engaged. Overall the tour was amazing and we saw a number of animals such as

Wood Bison

Moose

Thin Horn Sheep

Muskox

Canada Lynx

Canada Lynx

Mountain Goat

Red Fox

Red Fox

We came back and celebrated our daughter turning 18 months :)

Day 3 Late Night (or Day 4 Early Morning):

The aurora prediction was good (KPi > 5), but cloud covering was bad. I kept waking up every hour hoping that the sky would clear up. Unfortunately it didn't

Day 4:

We decided to stroll around in the nearby hikes and later visited Miles Canyon. Fall colors and snow clad mountains created a beautiful pallet of colors.

Hiking in Whitehorse

Miles Canyon

Day 4 Late Night (or Day 5 Early Morning):

This was our last night in Whitehorse. Northern Lights prediction was average (KPi = 3), but the weather prediction was slightly better. I kept waking up every hour again and finally hit the jackpot around 2:15 am. My wife and I witnessed dancing lights in the sky for about 30 minutes and cherished every moment of those 30 minutes.

Northern Lights

Northern Lights

Day 5:

We took a flight to Vancouver, relaxed in our hotel room and went out to Steveston's Fisherman Wharf to spend the evening.

Steveston's Fisherman Wharf

Day 6:

Back to San Francisco from Vancouver

Viewing Aurora

So we are in a place from where we can see Northern Lights right from our suite at a time of year when nights are comparatively longer. What can stop us now?
Two key things:

1. Geomagnetic activity (or rather, lack of it)
2. Weather (primarily cloud covering)

1. Geomagnetic activity: Rather than trying to explain myself, I am referencing how National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration explains the phenomenon:

   The aurora is formed from interactions between the solar wind streaming out from the sun and Earth’s protective magnetic field, or magnetosphere. The aurora is one manifestation of geomagnetic activity or geomagnetic storms.

   The level of geomagnetic activity is indicated by the planetary K index or Kp. The Kp index ranges from 0 to 9.

   • For Kp in the range 0 to 2, the aurora will be far north, quite dim in intensity, and not very active.
   • For Kp in the range of 3 to 5, the aurora will move further from the poles, it will become brighter and there will be more auroral activity (motion and formations). If you are in the right place, these aurora can be quite pleasing to look at.
   • For Kp in the range 6 to 7, the aurora will move even further from the poles and will become quite bright and active. At this geomagnetic activity level, it might be possible to see the aurora from the northern edge of the United States.
   • For Kp in the range 8 to 9, the aurora will move even further towards the equator and it will become very bright and very active. These are the events that create the best aurora and the extended auroral oval will be observable by the most people. At these levels, aurora may be seen directly overhead from the northern states of the USA.

   -- National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration

2. Even if there is a good amount of geomagnetic activity, if the sky is not clear, you won't be able to see the northern lights.

You can use the following tools to plan better:

1. Website to view predictions around different weather parameters. For Northern lights, the most important parameter would be cloud covering. I used cleardarksky.net, but you can find more sites providing similar information.
2. University of Alaska maintains a site from where you can get latest Aurora Forecast.
3. Combining both of these, you can also use apps that provide both information based on your location. I used My Aurora Forecast & Alerts app which has a free version available.
   The additional benefit of the app is, if you are open to driving around, the app can suggest nearby places that has a good probability of viewing aurora.

Once you are able to view northern lights and want to capture it with your camera, techniques to do night sky photography apply. I am not going deeper into the setup as I might write about it in a separate post, but at a high level, you need stable tripod, a lens with wide aperture (I used f/2.8), long exposure (I followed the '500 rule') and a wide angle lens (I used 16mm).

Of course, you can also use your Smartphone camera, but I completely forgot trying that out as I was too excited to capture northern lights in my camera, so I can't speak of the results.

Takeaways

• As you might have noticed, we didn't pack a lot in our day by day itinerary. It was mostly because we wanted to have a relaxed schedule and have enough time for our baby to take a nap, feed her and have her play around. There are lots of other things to do in Whitehorse and around. We wanted to go to Kluane National Park area which is 2 hours drive, but decided to take it easy eventually. However, if want to pack more stuff in a day, you'll have a lot of options. You can check out Travel Yukon Website for information around year around options.
• Do pay attention to the weather and activities you plan. Because Yukon is located in north of the Arctic Circle, days can be long during summer. So planning to see Northern lights in summer won't work. At the same time, if you are planning a trip during winters and want to drive, take usual precautions such as snow tires, tire chains etc.
• Even though Whitehorse is the largest city in Northern Canada, it's relatively small and there are very limited services if you are outside the main city area. If you are planning to stay on your own, make sure to plan logistics around getting supplies etc.
• Do visit it once. It's a beautiful place.