Northern Lights Forecast for Iqaluit

Northern Lights in Iqaluit

Iqaluit is the capital of Nunavut, a city of about 7,400 people on the hills above Koojesse Inlet at the head of Frobisher Bay, on Baffin Island. In Inuktitut the northern lights are aqsarniit, from the root for playing ball.

Why the aurora can be in the southern sky

Iqaluit lies at 63.75°N, but its geomagnetic latitude is about 73°, north of where the aurora usually sits around midnight on an average night (about 67°). So the main band can lie south of town as well as north of it, and the whole sky is worth watching.

Apex, Sylvia Grinnell and the Road to Nowhere

• Apex (Niaqunngut), about 5 km south-east of the centre, is where the Hudson’s Bay Company set up in 1949. It has a beach on Frobisher Bay and the old company buildings; Nunatsiaq News has published an aurora photo taken over one of them. It is a taxi ride, or 5 km on foot along the Apex Trail. One of the company buildings was moved into town and is the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum, with the Unikkaarvik Visitor Centre next door.
• Sylvia Grinnell Territorial Park starts about 1 km west of town, an easy 30-minute walk. It is open tundra along the Sylvia Grinnell River, with a viewing platform over the falls. Caribou, Arctic fox and polar bear are all recorded in the park.
• The Road to Nowhere leaves the Apex Road and climbs out of town as a gravel track, ending a little over 3.5 km later at the shooting range, with Iqaluit out of sight behind the hills.

Four-hour December days

There is no polar night, but the shortest day lasts about four hours twenty minutes. December is also the dullest month, with about 13 hours of sunshine in total on average, against 94 in February and 172 in March. February is the coldest month at −27 °C on average, and the wind chill record is −66.4, set in February.

Toonik Tyme in April, and the frozen bay

Toonik Tyme, an April festival first held in 1965 to mark the end of winter, brings igloo building, snowmobile races, Inuit games and ice golf. The name comes from the Tuniit, the people archaeologists call the Dorset. In spring the frozen bay is used for dog sledding, kite-skiing and snowmobiling, and outfitters go out to Qaummaarviit Territorial Park, a small island about 12 km away with Thule remains.

No road in, three hours from Ottawa

No road links Iqaluit with the rest of Canada. Canadian North flies from Ottawa in a little over three hours, and from Yellowknife and Rankin Inlet.