Arctic Photo Safari utilizes spacious specially modified 4-wheel drive vans, suitable for carrying your photo equipment and spotting scopes. The 4-wheel drive capability allows access to areas beyond the reach of the general public. Large windows are not tinted, and the height advantage over other vehicles allows it to serve as a viewing platform. Our usual birding season is mid-May through the first weeks of October. It is advisable to bring coats, gloves, and hats as the arctic winds usually prevail even into summer. Tours are preferably limited to an 8 person maximum per van. This allows each guest a window seat and space for their equipment.

Spring opens with the arrival of snowy owls, and following within short time eiders. Swans, geese, and various duck species are right behind them. Jaegers, gulls, loons, and terns become more common as the weather warms up to 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. With the warmer weather, the variety increases to include more than 150 species of birds including, sandpipers, phalaropes, and plovers. Ivory Ross' gulls arrive in late September and October.

With 4-wheel drive capability, we are able to check out bays and inlets along the beach an additional prime viewing areas with tundra grasses and ponds on both sides of the road. North of town towards the point are additional sites in which to view birds.

Tour is divided in usually a morning, then an afternoon or evening segment.

$80.00 per person based on a 3-person minimum.

A 2 week pre-booking is suggested.

Additional custom tours may be arranged.

Folklore abounds with explanations of the origins of the spellbinding celestial lights. The first Native Americans called them, "The Pathway to Heaven." Viewing the aurora borealis leaves you with a very spiritual feeling and a sense of amazement.

The true story is that the sun is the father of the Auroras. The sun gives off high-energy charged particles (also called ions) that travel out into space at speeds up to 1200 kilometres per second in a cloud of particles is called a plasma (solar wind). As the solar wind interacts with the edge of the earth's magnetic field, some of the particles are trapped and follow the lines of magnetic force down into the ionosphere. When the particles collide with gases in the ionosphere they start to glow, producing the Auroras Borealis (northern hemisphere), and Aurora Australis (southern hemisphere). The array of colors consists of red, green, blue and violet.

Barrow, Alaska is in a unique position geographically to view the Aurora Borealis as it is more than 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle (71°23'N to be exact), and has 67 continual days without a sunrise in the middle of winter.

Best viewing times of the Aurora Borealis are November through March. Tour hours start a few hours after the Northern Lights first begin to appear as they grow increasingly brighter late into evening/early morning.The areas for the best viewing change in Barrow from night to night, but our 4-wheel drive vans allows for us to get away from the light pollution of town and yet keep warm.

Northern Lights Tour.

$25 per person, 2 person minimum.

Barrow is the economic, transportation and administrative center for the North Slope Borough. Located on the Chukchi Sea coast, Barrow is the northern most community in the United States. Visitors to Barrow will arrive at the Wiley Post-Will Rogers Memorial Airport, which is serviced twice daily from Anchorage or Fairbanks by jet aircraft.

Upon special arrangement, Arctic Photo Safari can pick you up from your hotel in our specially equipped vans for a tour along the Chuckchi Sea to Point Barrow where the Beaufort and Chuckchi Seas meet. The churning of the currents at the point creates a heaven for birds, seals and walrus to feed on. When icebergs are present, coupled with the seal population, polar bears may be sighted even in the summer months.

With this tour, binoculars are provided for your use. A certificate for having attained the furthest point north in the United States, and a picture of any polar bear that we are able to photograph together, is our gift to you.

This tour operates 12 months a year.

Tour based on 2 to 2.5 hours.

$60 per person 2 person minimum.