Southern Canadians have been occasionally treated to neon-soaked night skies of purples, pinks and greens during a peak in the sun’s activity over the past two years.
But the celestial show put on by the northern lights will dim as the sun moves into a quieter phase of its 11-year cycle.
The best chance to see the dancing lights will remain in the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut. The North is where the auroral oval, a halo of light encircling the magnetic poles, is most visible, said Ethen Sun, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto’s David A. Dunlap astronomy and astrophysics department.
Displays of auroras in southern Canada, including parts of Ontario, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, will be rarer as the solar activity declines, he said.
The sun goes through an explosive solar maximum and a low-activity solar minimum.
“Right now we’re just about a year and a half past the maximum,” he said. “The activity is now falling and eventually it’ll reach minimum around 2031. It is still quite active because we’re still quite high up in the cycle, but it’s on the way down.”
The solar maximum, Sun said, is characterized by coronal mass ejections, flares, increases in sunspots and geomagnetic storms, which in turn result in vivid displays of northern lights.
But above the 60th parallel, he said auroras can be seen almost every night regardless of the sun’s activity.
The best time to see the auroras is between September and April, with especially bright shows around spring and autumn equinoxes, Sun said.
Even in the auroral oval, he said some of the intensity seen over the past two years may fade. As the solar activity quietens, he added the window for peak viewing will also begin to wane.
“The extra colours and the extra movement are generally when there’s some sort of storm going on.”
Arctic skies most reliable theatre on Earth for auroras
Tourism Yukon’s Market Updates 2024 and 2025 reports showed the territory planned to capitalize on the “solar max” between 2023 and 2025, with the northern lights being a key driver of tourists.
It also shows that tourists from the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, and Australia are especially interested in seeing the northern lights.
The government’s website showed the territory brought in $484 million “attributed to tourism” in 2025.
Aaron Ratko, board member with the Wilderness Tourism Association of Yukon, said he has seen people come during different seasons.
It’s possible that a tourist’s first visit to Yukon is during winter when the temperature is around -40 C and the person has come to experience the aurora, said Ratko, who also owns Northern Tales Travel Services, a tourism company.
“As a repeat customer they come back and experience the fall time aurora when you can wear a few less layers and try a few different day tours,” he said.
“So they do come back for the aurora, but I would say they’re mostly intrigued by the different types of day tours or experiences they can have.”
His company does not track the solar max, he said. “I think this cycle has been pushing the aurora further south and the aurora has been advertising [itself].”
Alex Stubbing, CEO of Travel Nunavut, said the territory doesn’t focus on northern lights like Northwest Territories and Yukon do.
Tourists come to Nunavut to experience Inuit culture and heritage, view the mountain chains, landscape and wildlife, he said.
“And yes, they might have good aurora viewing and good aurora experiences, but none of the trips are based around the aurora.”
As the solar maximum wanes, and the three territories emerge as prized aurora destinations, Stubbing said Nunavut would consider promoting itself as a key location for northern lights.
In the Northwest Territories, the northern lights are a near-nightly sight, with the government’s tourism website boasting Yellowknife gets up to 240 nights of northern lights a year.
About 41 per cent of tourists were drawn to N.W.T. because of the northern lights, said the 2023-2024 Tourism in the NWT report.
Marie-Soleil Lacoursière, operations manager for Aurora Village, a tourism company in Yellowknife, said northern lights are an important source of revenue for the territories.
They help fill hotels, restaurants, supermarkets and small businesses such as tour operators, she said.
The company also keeps track of the solar cycle, blogging about the waning solar maximum and how people can take advantage of the Northwest Territories being one of the sweet spots for northern lights, said Hideo Nagatani, a senior advisor at Aurora Village.
While the change in the sun’s cycle is something to note, he said it doesn’t much affect their business or customers.
“It’s something unpredictable and what they see is beyond their expectation,” he said.
