Yellowknife: Aurora Hunting Tour with Aboriginal Guides & Photos

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1/9

Duration4h

GroupUp to 12

LanguagesEN · KO +1

PickupAt your hotel

Yellowknife aurora hunting tour with local stories, wild skies and warm maple cookies

You’ll chase the Northern Lights outside Yellowknife with local Aboriginal guides who know where to find clear skies each night. Warm up with hot chocolate and Canadian maple cookies while your guide takes professional photos of you under the aurora. The route changes based on weather — it’s always an adventure — and you’ll hear real stories along the way.

Step-by-step itinerary

Aurora hunting and viewing experience

Depart for Aurora viewing locations
Hunt for Aurora based on conditions
Enjoy wilderness and wildlife surroundings
Receive free professional Aurora photos
Drink hot chocolate and eat cookies

The Experience

Someone’s pouring hot chocolate into my mug — steam curling up in the cold — before I even realize how numb my fingers have gotten. That’s Li, our guide. He grew up here in Yellowknife and knows every backroad and shortcut through the dark. We’d been driving for maybe half an hour, headlights bouncing off snowbanks, when he suddenly pulled over. “Clouds are moving,” he said, checking his phone and then the sky like he was reading a secret code. There’s no set route on this aurora hunting tour; you just follow wherever the lights might show up.

I didn’t expect how quiet it would be out there. Just us, some other hopeful faces from Europe and Japan (I think?), and that big northern silence broken only by boots crunching on snow or someone laughing nervously when they look up. The air smells sharp — like pine and something metallic — and every so often Li points out animal tracks in the snow. He told us about his grandmother seeing the aurora as a kid, said it’s different every night. And then, almost like it was waiting for us to settle down, green ribbons started flickering across the sky. It wasn’t loud or dramatic at first — more like a shy hello.

Li snapped photos of everyone (free, which is nice because my hands were shaking too much to try), and passed around these maple cookies that tasted way better than I expected at midnight in the middle of nowhere. Someone tried to say “aurora” in Dene — Li laughed so hard he almost dropped his camera. I still think about that moment: all of us standing there together, breath hanging in the air, not really saying much but somehow sharing something big.

What’s included

Your evening includes flexible pickup options near Yellowknife, guidance from Aboriginal locals who know where to find clear skies for Northern Lights viewing, free pro photos taken under the aurora, use of small tripods (with larger ones available to rent), plus hot chocolate and Canadian maple cookies shared out under open skies before heading back late at night.

Good to know

Easy physical levelPublic transport nearby

Operated by North Star Adventures