This year's aurora tours were Sept. 7-14 and Sept. 14-21. The first tour was in partnership with NANPA and co-led with my friend Mary Louise Ravese. We had nine participants on this tour. The other tour I led on my own with five enthusiastic photographers.

Despite some dismal initial weather forecasts, both tour groups managed to see and photograph some spectacular auroras. During the first tour, when the weather forecast called for rain or lightning, we got rain or lightning. However, when the forecast called for 100% cloud cover with no rain, we ended up with mostly clear skies.

My experience from visiting Yellowknife eleven times, is that over the six nights of possible shooting, we usually see auroras at least four out of those six nights. And this year was no different. In fact, during the second tour we saw auroras every night and four of those nights were exceptional.

During both tours we got to experience aurora storms overhead. And by that I mean we witnessed fast moving, rippling, twisting and colorful auroras. They are hard to photograph because they’re moving so fast that even with short exposures like a half-second, the auroras blur. Because I know that will happen, I encouraged everyone to simply look up in awe and enjoy.

My strategy for photographing these displays is to blindly point the camera straight up and hope for the best while oohing and aahing. It always pays off. Sometimes (usually?) I don’t get a usable picture (sometimes I do), but I’m always left in awe over what I’ve experience.

Auroras aren’t the only attraction in Yellowknife. The reason I go in September is two-fold: temperatures at night are tolerable (rarely getting down to freezing) and there can be spectacular fall color during the day. Said color provided by birch trees, willow, wild rose leaves, fireweed leaves and tamarack trees (larch).

There are numerous lakes to photograph as well as scenes along Cameron River, including a couple of waterfalls. They’re especially tempting when accompanied by fall colors. This year, the colors peaked at the end of the first tour and the beginning of the second tour so that everyone got to see the colors at their best.

So this year's visit was very good and, from the feedback I received, everyone had a great time.

If you’re interested in joining me for an aurora/fall color tour to Yellowknife, drop me a line and/or subscribe to my newsletter, where I announce upcoming workshops and tours.