In Canada’s frigid north, Churchill is home to only 900 residents but draws scientists and adventure travellers from around the globe. 
Photograph by Yulia Denisyuk

Photo story: chasing the Northern Lights in Churchill, Canada

In Canada’s frigid north, Churchill is home to only 900 residents but draws scientists and adventure travellers from around the globe. The tiny town beside Hudson Bay, in a remote part of the province of Manitoba, is also one of the country’s main hubs for conservation and innovative eco-tourism.

Story and photographs byYulia Denisyuk
November 25, 2023
7 min read
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK)
The first thing visitors to Churchill tend to notice is how remote it is. No roads connect this town on the shore of Hudson Bay to the rest of the world — a two-hour flight or two-day train ride from Winnipeg are the only ways in.
Photograph by Yulia Denisyuk
But its isolated location doesn’t mean a lack of activity. Churchill is home to a handful of tour operators, which run trips to spot wildlife such as foxes, caribou, wolves and polar bear.
Photograph by Yulia Denisyuk
Among them, B Corp-certified Frontiers North Adventures offers several eco-touring experiences. Bob Demets is one of the drivers of the world’s first fully electric tundra buggy, leading excursions to spot polar bears.
Photograph by Yulia Denisyuk
Meanwhile, dining beneath the Northern Lights on the tundra at the mobile outpost Dan’s Diner is overseen by chef Connor Macaulay.
Photograph by Yulia Denisyuk
Because Churchill is located directly under the Northern Hemisphere’s auroral oval (a zone that surrounds the magnetic pole) it’s one of the best places on Earth to view the Northern Lights. Although this spectacular show is strongest during the late-winter and early-spring seasons, the lights are visible in Churchill up to 300 nights a year. 
Photograph by Yulia Denisyuk
With winter temperatures dropping to -30C and below, the aurora is best witnessed in the comfort of a tundra buggy, outfitted with an outdoor viewing platform and indoor lounge. 
Photograph by Yulia Denisyuk
In Inuit culture, the lights are called aksarnirq, and are believed to be the souls of the recently departed, who are sometimes said to play football with walrus skulls in the skies, or to carry torches to guide those still living on this planet. 
Photograph by Yulia Denisyuk
Churchill provides access to three biomes — arctic marine, arctic tundra and boreal forest — and welcomes great numbers of beluga whales every summer, as well as a population of polar bears every autumn. 
Photograph by Yulia Denisyuk
The town is a magnet for researchers like Louise Archer, who studies the impact of climate change on the Arctic with environmental nonprofit organisation Polar Bears International, and wildlife enthusiasts such as Jim Baldwin, a guide with Frontiers North, who leads snowshoe excursions into the tundra. 
Photograph by Yulia Denisyuk
Among the tour companies run by Indigenous community members is Wapusk Adventures. Owned by a father-and-son musher team, it offers cultural tours, dog sledding and the chance to spot the Northern Lights from its ‘aurora tipi’.
Photograph by Yulia Denisyuk
Bears are everywhere in Churchill, a town dubbed ‘the polar bear capital of the world’. Thanks to Sea Walls, a public-art project that aims to draw attention to issues born out of climate change, images of bears adorn the town’s buildings, including the walls of tiny supply stores. 
Photograph by Yulia Denisyuk
Residents avoid going outside after dark and leave their cars unlocked to potentially provide shelter to anyone encountering a bear. But it’s the bears who are under threat, here and around the Arctic. Because of melting sea ice, they’re losing their habitat and catching fewer seals, thus depleting their life-giving fat stores. This leads to smaller litter sizes and dwindling populations; the Hudson Bay one has dropped by a third in the past five years. 
Photograph by Yulia Denisyuk
Published in the December 2023 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).

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