Winter Wonderland @ Yellowknife, Canada. Day 3 --- Heritage.

One of the places in Yellowknife that most visitors are likely to drop by is the Northern Frontier Visitors Centre, which is the main tourist information centre in the town. Though the Centre is just across the street from our hotel, with the freezing temperature it didn't feel like a particularly short walk.

The Centre also doubles as a souvenir store with a wide range of merchandise. The friendly staff at the Centre even helped us to book a table for lunch on the next day, at Bullock's Bistro, which was recommended to us by the waiter at the Chinese restaurant where we ate on the previous night.

Northern Frontier Visitors Centre

Northern Frontier Visitors Centre

Festive mood at the Visitors Centre

Well worth a visit is the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (PWNHC), which is fairly close to the North Frontier Visitors Centre. Again, what would be a short walk in the summer was rendered not so easy by the heavy snow cover on the paths. It  helped that we were wearing some heavy-duty winter footwear that we had rented with the evening aurora hunting tour (more on the tour below).

The PWNHC houses a respectable collection of artifacts related to the Northwest Territories of Canada. There are models of animals found in the region, as well as exhibits of the culture and resources of the northern province.

Making our way to the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre through the snow.

Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre

Finally reaching the main entrance of the Centre

Muskox

One of the Canadian native animals on display --- moose

Caribou

Beluga whale

Mooseskin boat

Work of local artists

Seeing the northern lights was the main reason of our visit to Yellowknife. We had joint aurora viewing tours at Aurora Village on the two previous nights. On the third night we went for an aurora hunting tour. We find that aurora hunting tours offered by several operators in Yellowknife generally receive rather mixed reviews, with shares of both positive and negative comments. Whether one gets a good or bad experience with such tours, like seeing the aurora itself, seems to be down to a matter of chance.

For us, the aurora hunting tour turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment. We were assigned to one of the three or four 7-seater MPVs in the group.The overcast sky that evening meant that "aurora hunting" was really necessary. For the good part of an hour we kept on driving around. As the driver and the accompanying helper were both very quiet, we did not know when we would stop or how likely it was to see the lights. With everyone wearing bulky winter clothing, sitting cramped in the vehicle for an hour started to feel a bit uncomfortable. We made about two stops that evening, and had to settle for a glimpse of the northern lights in the second stop, with the help of a long exposure on the camera.

A faint veil of the northern lights was just visible with the help of a long exposure in the camera.

We had to settle for a glimpse of the elusive northern lights this evening