“They say you can hear the northern lights crackle. Even after years of living amongst them, I’ve only heard it once,” says Dave Daley, a long-distance dog sledder and Métis tour guide based in Churchill, Canada. He was 250 miles north of home when it happened, crossing the Hudson Bay as his dogs stopped to look at the display, spanning shades of pink, green, and white. “The lights made a wall in front of us, and for 10 minutes we were in a trance. Why did they appear at this moment? It was my ancestors making sure I got to my destination safely.”
Daley is the Métis founder of tour company Wapusk Adventures, which he runs with his wife and two sons in the small Arctic town of Churchill (population 900)—a.k.a. the Polar Bear Capital of the World. Stories like this are what make his northern lights experiences unique. Instead of treating the lights as a rare entity to catch, or capture, he uses the natural phenomenon as a launchpad to share his heritage—and stories—with visitors to the far north. “We have a program we call Tipi Tales, where people come out in the summer, and I tell stories,” says Daley, who says warmer weather lends to better lights viewing. Guests get to meet his dozens of loving sled dogs (he’s best known for offering dogsled rides) while chatting under the stars for a couple of hours, hoping to see the sky come to life. “My son, who is 28 and growing up in the north might share his experiences too,” he says. “There’s a lot of oral history about the northern lights.” Daley hopes the lights will show—but with the right programming, it’s okay if they don’t.
In the same way that northern lights tourism in Churchill plays a supporting role to the hottest ticket in town, polar bear excursions, Indigenous storytelling is a way that Native travel guides are enriching aurora borealis viewing for visitors. It’s fitting, given that the lights have a long history of significance for Indigenous communities from Alaska to Lapland to Siberia. Doing so makes an evening about more than just getting the shot—perhaps a crucial frame-of-mind when pursuing an activity entirely dependent on changing weather conditions, and that offers zero guarantee of a sighting. “There’s no schedule to wildlife, and there’s no schedule to the northern lights,” says Daley.
There’s no one meaning as to what they represent, either. “I believe the Northern Lights are the souls of our ancestors watching over us,” says Daley. “Other people believe it’s our ancestors dancing in the sky; Inuit believe it’s their ancestors playing soccer with a walrus skull. Some tour companies get their people to whistle at the lights, to get them to dance—but some people believe they’ll come down and smack your soul [if you do that].” In a toasty tipi, waiting for the lights to appear, these stories shape the perspective travelers apply to the night sky. Or, if you join local Katie deMuelles (Métis) and Nanuk Operations, also in Churchill, that might take place in a warm yurt with local wine served.
