“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.
“There are various understandings,” says Wilfred Buck (Opaskwayak Cree), a science facilitator at the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre and an ‘Indigenous star lore expert.’ There are even multiple names within Buck’s nation alone: “My people call the Northern Lights wâwâhtêwa (the shimmering lights up in the sky) and cîpayak kâ-nîmihitocik, which refers to when they are dancing so bright that you can feel the energy, and the hair on your arms and neck will stand up.” And that's what, essentially, makes an Indigenous northern lights tour so unique: Depending on where in the world you go, you'll learn something new every time.
Some 3,000 miles away in Finnish Lapland, Aurora Holidays is a Sámi family-owned lodge north of the Arctic Circle in Utsjoki. They have been running northern lights tours with cultural storytelling elements for seven years. They also offer experiences that teach guests about Sámi traditions like reindeer herding, snowshoeing, and hiking under the midnight sun. During northern lights outings in the fall and winter, travelers warm up in a small hut beside the revered Teno river while guides contextualize the lights. You may hear stories about how the lights are believed to speak (and listen); or how others have traditionally feared them, staying inside while the aurora dances, just to be safe. “There are as many Indigenous perspectives as there are Sámi people,” says Jonna Wood, the company's marketing lead. “Though the culture and history is shared, the modern-day Sámi population is a varied bunch and not a stereotypical group that can be put in a box and labeled.”
In neighboring Kiruna, Sweden, Kerstin Nilsson (from the Leaváš Sámi community) doesn't plan her experiences around the lights. Rather, the display is a bonus to the Icelandic horse rides she and Mats Blind-Berg (Girjas Sámi) offer through their tour company, Ofelaš. To Nilsson, the “magic phenomenon” of the lights, and Indigenous interpretations of them, are a means of more broadly understanding the Sámi connection to the land. “It is not just the scientific way of looking at northern lights—it has to do with the way of living and thinking,” says Nilsson. “You need to be aware of what the nature is telling you.” On blustery horse rides, greeted by the aurora or not, Nilsson hopes travelers will pay attention to the world around them in the way that Sámi locals long have. It's the kind of experience that sticks with most travelers longer than any photo will.