# Aurora Borealis - Northern Lights in Kugluktuk Nunavut, Canada!



## Manurack (Dec 20, 2012)

I live in Kugluktuk, Nunavut, Canada in the high Canadian Arctic, every year I get the chance to watch the amazing Northern Lights dance and it never gets boring! Here are some great photos that my girlfriend took with her Nikon D300 camera!


This beautiful shot of the Northern Lights were dancing high up in the Sky right above my house! And no that top left window isn't broken, it's exterior plastic to keep the bedroom warmer in -50 weather!






These Northern Lights were amazing that night, this was the view right across the street!





Simply breath taking! I've watched the Northern Lights dance all my life growing up in the Canadian Arctic!






Has anybody witnessed this incredibly amazing phenomenon in real life??


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## Manurack (Dec 20, 2012)

I have more pics, but my limit is full to upload pictures to my profile lol


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## Alberto7 (Dec 23, 2012)

That's beautiful. I've always wanted to see them for myself. It's gonna be a tad hard living in Montreal as a student with a student budget, but my family might be moving to northern Alberta soon, so that's one of the first things I'm looking forward to when I visit them.


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## Manurack (Dec 23, 2012)

Alberto7 said:


> That's beautiful. I've always wanted to see them for myself. It's gonna be a tad hard living in Montreal as a student with a student budget, but my family might be moving to northern Alberta soon, so that's one of the first things I'm looking forward to when I visit them.



Hey dude, yes the Northern Lights are AMAZING!
When you do visit your family in Northern Alberta, try to make a trip to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories for a weekend, it's a great little city. You will most likely see the Northern Lights on any given night there!


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## Fat-Elf (Dec 23, 2012)

Yes, I have witnessed this amazing phenomenon. Sadly, it has been at least 5-6 years since I have seen them. They are very rare especially here in Southern Finland these days.


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## Manurack (Dec 23, 2012)

Fat-Elf said:


> Yes, I have witnessed this amazing phenomenon. Sadly, it has been at least 5-6 years since I have seen them. They are very rare especially here in Southern Finland these days.



Like I said, make a trip to the Canadian Arctic, it's only a few thousand dollars


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## Nykur_Myrkvi (Dec 23, 2012)

I see this very regularly (Iceland) but it never ceases to amaze me.


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## Manurack (Dec 23, 2012)

Nykur_Myrkvi said:


> I see this very regularly (Iceland) but it never ceases to amaze me.



Curious question about your specific area in Iceland dude, how cold is it there right now?
Here in Kugluktuk, it's -30, but with the windchill factor, it's -45!! I'm nice and toasty in my living room having coffee tho lol


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## Nykur_Myrkvi (Dec 23, 2012)

Manurack said:


> Curious question about your specific area in Iceland dude, how cold is it there right now?
> Here in Kugluktuk, it's -30, but with the windchill factor, it's -45!! I'm nice and toasty in my living room having coffee tho lol


It's actually been one of the warmest winters I remember. Right now (19:34/7:34 pm) it's about 5°C (41° if you like Fahrenheit) so it's not cold.


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## McBonez (Dec 23, 2012)

Manurack said:


> Hey dude, yes the Northern Lights are AMAZING!
> When you do visit your family in Northern Alberta, try to make a trip to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories for a weekend, it's a great little city. You will most likely see the Northern Lights on any given night there!



19 hours of driving is a little bit of overkill for a weekend trip


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## AscendingMatt (Dec 23, 2012)

man i wish i could seee this in real life


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## texshred777 (Dec 23, 2012)

Seeing this in person is on my bucket list.


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## Manurack (Dec 24, 2012)

McBonez said:


> 19 hours of driving is a little bit of overkill for a weekend trip



$140 gets you a 1 hour plane ride on Canadian North from Edmonton to Yellowknife


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## Rocky (Dec 24, 2012)

holy shit thats amazing


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## Alberto7 (Dec 24, 2012)

Manurack said:


> Hey dude, yes the Northern Lights are AMAZING!
> When you do visit your family in Northern Alberta, try to make a trip to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories for a weekend, it's a great little city. You will most likely see the Northern Lights on any given night there!



Yeah, I'm planning on eventually visiting the Northern Provinces  it should be a great and refreshing trip! The things you see at those super high latitudes seem incredible and so different. Most of all, the aurora!


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## skeels (Dec 24, 2012)

So cool man.

Youre lucky to live where you can see that.




Puts Christmas lights to shame....


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## Manurack (Dec 24, 2012)

Alberto7 said:


> Yeah, I'm planning on eventually visiting the Northern Provinces  it should be a great and refreshing trip! The things you see at those super high latitudes seem incredible and so different. Most of all, the aurora!



Northern Provinces? 
It's called the 3 Territories lol I hope you do make it up, in the summer you can experience 24 HOURS OF THE SUN!!! 

Seriously dude, the sun stays up 24 hours from the end of May all the way to mid July! It is crazy, yet so cool once your body has adjusted lol
But you will get SLAUGHTERED by the retarded amount of blood sucking mosquitoes 

And right now, we get a bit of brightness for a couple hours, but the Sun never comes out, check this out, the part where it says the Sun is "Down All Day" almost killed me laughing 
Sunrise and Sunset for Canada &#8211; Nunavut Territory &#8211; Kugluktuk &#8211; coming days


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## Alberto7 (Dec 25, 2012)

Manurack said:


> Northern Provinces?
> It's called the 3 Territories lol I hope you do make it up, in the summer you can experience 24 HOURS OF THE SUN!!!
> 
> Seriously dude, the sun stays up 24 hours from the end of May all the way to mid July! It is crazy, yet so cool once your body has adjusted lol
> ...



Forgive me  I'm still really not used to what things are called over here yet; you can really tell I'm new . But it's true, they're not provinces, but federal territories. I apologize . I meant the northern-most demarcations in Canada: Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and Yukon. 

But yeah, the mosquitoes are a big turn off . Got enough of them here in Quebec in the summer, and experienced enough in Northern Alberta when I visited in August. Also had enough of them when I was living down in South America. I want to go during Fall, or perhaps even Winter (and get slaughtered by the cold, instead of mosquitoes ), but it boils down to whenever I get a few days off! Sun 24 hours a day definitely sounds exciting, but also sounds like some extreme seasonal blues .


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## Bevo (Dec 26, 2012)

I have been lucky to see it a few times and its always spectacular!

This summer I was in Edmonton working and the radio said to expect them outside the city that night. I drove over 200K north just to get away from any city lights and got to see them..pretty cool!!


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## Jinogalpa (Dec 26, 2012)

@Manurack

they look very cool

i ever wondered about are they glowing fast or more slowly (like in timelapse), maybe you can post a real time video ?


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## Manurack (Dec 26, 2012)

Jinogalpa said:


> @Manurack
> 
> they look very cool
> 
> i ever wondered about are they glowing fast or more slowly (like in timelapse), maybe you can post a real time video ?



All I have to record is a crappy camera on my Blackberry 8530 phone lol
My girlfriend has such a great camera, a Nikon D300 camera but it doesn't take videos lol 

However, I have found a video on youtube that was taken in Iqaluit, the capital city of the Nunavut Territory. It has traditional Inuit throat singing too


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## Hollowway (Dec 26, 2012)

I need to see those before I die. I also have to say that the first time I heard of these was in "I Ran" from Flock of Seaguls. I'm not gonna muck up your thread with a vid post of the song though.


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## Underworld (Dec 27, 2012)

I saw them in Quebec a couple of time. Not as intense as yours, but still very cool. I also worked in Rankin Inlet for some time and managed to see this up from the North. Pretty awesome if you ask me. 

My father went up to Eureka (a weather station close to Alert) and said he saw things out of this world!


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## Manurack (Dec 27, 2012)

Underworld said:


> I saw them in Quebec a couple of time. Not as intense as yours, but still very cool. I also worked in Rankin Inlet for some time and managed to see this up from the North. Pretty awesome if you ask me.
> 
> My father went up to Eureka (a weather station close to Alert) and said he saw things out of this world!



Literally, out of this world 
I know what your talking about dude, I have been to "Spankin' Rankin" lol Rankin Inlet, you can walk right into town from the Airport because it's so close! 

And yeah dude, Eureka is pretty friggen high up there! Pretty cool to know there is another forum member on this site that has been to Nunavut


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## Shawn (Feb 6, 2013)

Nice! You can see Ursa Major really well in the first pic. I absolutely love the night sky in the winter. So many great constellations and some of my favorite stars. Great pics!


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## Roy (Feb 10, 2013)

Last summer I drove to Nordkapp (Norway). Similar Auroras there. Turned out we saw one of the first in the season (August 20th) when we were in Tromso.
this must be one of the best things about living in the high north.


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## GatherTheArsenal (Feb 20, 2013)

That's pretty sweet, I love extreme temperatures especially favoring the colder rather hotter, but none of that here in Vancouver. We had a super foggy day like 2 weeks ago and I almost lost my shit because of how stoked I was not to see rain!!


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## ADevilsDaydream817 (Feb 21, 2013)

that is amazing but all the way down in texas that aint happening. plus i dont like it really when it gets cooler than 90


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## Alberto7 (Aug 5, 2013)

So, instead of making a new thread about it, I thought I'd update this one to say that tonight I FINALLY got to see the Northern Lights. I came to visit my recently-moved family in Fort McMurray, and we saw them from the shores of the Clearwater River. It was right at midnight on my birthday, too, so that made it THAT much more special.

Absolutely beautiful and breathtaking, even though they were a tad dim at times (light pollution, as we had some of the city lights in the background) and the sky was beginning to become cloudy. We stood there watching in awe for about a half hour. They were mostly a slightly dim neon green that danced all around and above us. However, we did get about 5 minutes where they REALLY came to life with very explosive and bright neon pink, red, and white colors. It's incredible how they seem to dance all across the sky. When they're right above you, you really feel belittled by their size and beautiful might. In my excitement and anticipation during the weeks before seeing them (because I've been here for the last couple of weeks), I had dreams at night where I was seeing them. The real thing looked EVEN BETTER than what I had envisioned in my dreams.

I wish I had had a proper camera with me. I took a few pictures with my phone, but they're barely good enough to serve as "proof" . Nonetheless, I still have a couple of weeks left over here, and I'll be coming back again this Winter, so I still have a chance of seeing even better displays. Hopefully, with clear skies and the super dark Winter nights from here, I'll get some good to show in the future .

Lifelong dream of seeing the aurora borealis firsthand: CHECK! 

PS: OP, what happened to the pictures?!


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## Manurack (Aug 7, 2013)

Alberto7 said:


> PS: OP, what happened to the pictures?!



Since I'm not a contributor, I had to unfortunately delete the photo album on my profile containing all the northern lights pics to add more guitar pics.

Buuuuuuuut with the power of facebook, here they are again! My girlfriend used her Nikon D300 camera with it set on long exposure to capture the great pictures!

This beautiful shot of the Northern Lights were dancing high up in the Sky right above my house! And no that top left window isn't broken, it's exterior plastic to keep the bedroom warmer in -50 weather!







These Northern Lights were amazing that night, this was the view right across the street!






Simply breath taking! I've watched the Northern Lights dance all my life growing up in the Canadian Arctic!





Amazing!


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## Alberto7 (Aug 7, 2013)

Whoa, I know I saw those pictures already, but they're still shocking. It's comforting to know that they were taken with a Nikon D300 and came out that great, as I have one of those available to me. Thanks so much for putting them up again!


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## Manurack (Aug 8, 2013)

no problem dude. Yeah my girlfriend did the long exposure thing, where she holds the lens open for about 30 seconds or more and staying very still to capture the pics. If she were to use a $100 camera with the fast shutter, the picture would come out very dark and crappy lol


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## Alberto7 (Aug 8, 2013)

^ I know, I tried doing that with my phone's camera (Galaxy S3), and this was the result:








Definitely bringing the camera AND a tripod next time!


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