I just completed the Arctic Skies program in Churchill Manitoba. My first Road Scholar experience and what a beginning!! Everything was wonderful, the people, the food, the lectures, the activities, the accommodations, and oh those aurora...So so glad I went..great way for solos to travel.

For the amateur astronomer, this program is a must. It also helps to be a lover of cold weather outdoor activities. Having always been something of the former, I hastened to sign up in 2013 when the aurora was predicted to peak. But my aversion to the latter nearly derailed my enjoyment of the phenomena I had traveled so far and paid so dearly to experience. Yes, we dressed in layers and stuffed hand warmers in our mittens and toe warmers in our socks, but I still got frozen digits and frosty eyebrows when we finished our outdoor forays. Trying to manipulate a camera while bundled up proved nearly impossible, so my photo haul from this program is rather sparse. But we did, indeed, see the aurora every night, some nights more spectacular than others to be sure. The final night was the best, largely because the wind was becalmed and it was possible to take one's hand out of one's mitten long enough to snap the lens. However, just being in the presence of such a spectacular heavenly display is far superior to any photo that was or ever will be taken. It was otherworldly and gave one a reverence for this wonderful orb we have been blessed to inhabit. We also were blessed with a particularly personable and fascinating lecturer who taught us not only the landmarks, or rather the skymarks, by which to navigate the heavens; he also gave us expert instruction on the operation of our own cameras and binoculars to get the best performance out of our personal equipment for viewing and recording our sightings. With an asteroid cruising by Earth and a meteorite exploding in Russia, he had more than just the skies of northern Manitoba to explicate and he did so in a highly informative but entertaining manner. We became so fond of him, that his nightly rousing of us from our cozy bunks in the wee hours with shouts of "showtime" was not just tolerated but eagerly anticipated. Oh, I forgot to mention, it also helps one's enjoyment of this program to be a bit of an insomniac!