Northern Lights Forecast for Rankin Inlet

Northern Lights in Rankin Inlet

Rankin Inlet, Kangiqtiniq (“deep inlet”) in Inuktitut, is a hamlet of about 3,000 people on the west coast of Hudson Bay and the regional centre of the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut. No road reaches it: Calm Air flies from Winnipeg in about two and a half hours, and Canadian North from Yellowknife and Iqaluit. Its geomagnetic latitude is about 71°, north of where the aurora’s main band usually sits around midnight on an average night (about 67°, the geomagnetic latitude of Churchill, 460 km down the coast), so here it can show in the southern sky as well as overhead. The season starts in August; Nunatsiaq News has printed local photos of displays from mid-August.

From the middle of town to the Meliadine River

The aurora is seen from the middle of town, over Maani Ulujuk School and the inuksuk, both of which appear in local photos. For somewhere darker, Iqalugaarjuup Nunanga Territorial Park is about 8 km north-west in the valley of the Meliadine River, reached by a gravel road in summer and by snowmobile in winter. The name means “the land around the river of little fishes”, after the Arctic grayling, and the park has more than 45 archaeological sites, including Thule house ruins, tent rings and graves.

Bears on the Hudson Bay shore

The shore looks east over sea ice: the bay is largely frozen from mid-December to mid-June. Polar bears are most common along the coast, and Nunavut Parks advises going with a local guide, so do not walk the shore alone after dark.

Seven-day blizzards and Pakallak Tyme

There is no polar night, and the shortest day lasts about four hours fifty minutes. January averages −30.1 °C, the record low is −49.8 °C, and the town is known for its winter winds: in 2008 it sat through a blizzard of seven days and five hours, with wind chills down to −58. Pakallak Tyme, the spring festival in late April and early May, has sled and snowmobile races, igloo building and a fishing competition.

The rock crusher, the Matchbox Gallery and Marble Island

The town grew up around a nickel and copper mine that ran from 1957 to 1962, and its old rock crusher still stands. Inuit ceramics have been made here since the 1960s; the Matchbox Gallery, founded in 1987, shows them alongside stone and antler carving.

Marble Island, about 30 km offshore, takes its name from the white quartzite in its rock. James Knight’s expedition died there by 1722. The island belongs to the Kivalliq Inuit Association, which issues permits to non-Inuit visitors, and by tradition visitors crawl ashore rather than step onto it.