Northern Lights Photo Expedition

I physically fear the cold. Like, I come into the season, I'm so anxious, I build it up in my head. And then I get geared up and I get up here and you get into it and I'm around all the Churchill people and Then you get out under the Aurora and somehow all of that goes away. When it is going, I have stood outside for two hours. My group is coming out to try and get me because they're like, you haven't taken a break and everyone's coming in and taking breaks. You told us you have to take breaks. But I'm just out there in absolute awe of it. These magically colorful lights that are dancing in the sky. Churchill is this small northern town that you can't access by road and has some of the most resilient, kind people ever. There's such a great story to tell here. The history and the starting of fur trade in the area and indigenous components and everything that they've been through with buildings like gypsies being burned down and the rail line shutdowns and issues with the port and the granary and massive blizzards and somehow this community is still just standing so strong. You go through so much and yet you insist on staying here, so why is that? And I think just the community is so cool and the ecosystems, of course. There are multiple ecosystems intermingling at the same time. The boreal forest, the Hudson Bay, and the tundra. These three vastly different ecosystems that hold vastly different animals, the biodiversity in each of them is very unique, and so they all just get to hang out together. Polar bears and northern lights and belugas and birds and wildflowers, like, they just have all these cool things. It's fascinating that a place like this exists that can sustain itself so much on tourism by just having a bunch of rad things that are here. But one of the things I love about Churchill is how easily you can get people to fall in love with Churchill. Aurora season, we're in the thick of it right now. End of January into March, cold time of year, but cold time means clear skies. Lots of aurora activity. Throughout the day, we do a bunch of winter activities. Let's go snowshoeing and go for walks in the woods and build a nook shooks out of snow blocks. In the evening, go into an open area and just watch the sky explode above you. It's always different, and that's the thing with guests. They're like, well, is tonight better than last night? And I always say that. There's no comparison. You can't compare it. Sometimes you just see green, and it's slowly moving across the sky. Other times it's multiple colors and it's moving fast. And sometimes it'll explode for a three minute show and then it vanishes just as fast as it came in. And I think that there's just like this mysterious nature of it that we can't predict. We have apps. You can check everything you want. It doesn't matter what they say. She's gonna do whatever she wants. And we just sit here and wait for her. And I just think that's really cool. It's one of those things that people go out and they want to take pictures with their cameras and their phones. I really love to reinforce the idea of like stop doing that sometimes. And it's late at night, There's not a whole lot of other things that are happening, so we can just stop. We can be quiet. You can watch nature happen in this, like, magical form in the sky, and you can just really kind of connect with the environment, with where you are. I find it very grounding somehow watching this thing flying around in the sky. It's beautiful. Stunning. Everyone else will be so quiet and I have to remind myself sometimes that like, okay, it's my turn. I actually need to be quiet, so I let them enjoy it because I'm just like, wow, wow, wow, it's so amazing, look at it. And I'm so excited and I love watching other people be so excited. This is people's bucket list items, something they've dreamed of for thirty years or whatever it is. Their reaction to seeing it can sometimes just like really solidify and remind myself of how special and fun this is and it really helps make it very clear why I'm in this industry. I get to travel and see amazingly cool things and help people see those amazingly cool things and get them to care about it.