“The outside temperature is 35 below Celsius,” crackled the pilot's announcement as our propeller aircraft taxied towards Churchill's toy-sized terminal. Music to the ears of a certifiable arcticoholic like me.

Insane as this may sound, I had flown to this godforsaken town on the Hudson Bay in the middle of winter, as much for the elemental high drama of extreme conditions as for the five-day “learning vacation” in which I had enrolled on.

Still, even my goose-down parka with its coyote-fur hood could not prevent wind-driven particles of ice from welcoming me with a razor slice to my face.

Winter is the season for watching the northern lights because this is when the sky is sufficiently dark in arctic regions, during the hours preceding midnight when auroral activity is at its most intense. The absence of light pollution is another requirement, which is why I was on my way to an isolated research station on the tundra's edge, 15 miles east of Churchill. Here I hoped to try to learn a little about arctic astronomy, as well as experience the aurora borealis.

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“Call this cold? There is a blizzard on its way down from the pole and the temperature is about to freefall,” chuckled Mike Goodyear, director of the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, venue for the course. We drove in his giant-wheeled pick-up along the margin of Hudson Bay - a sea of frozen surf piled up like stiff-whipped egg white at this time of year - to the CNSC. The singlestorey building is on the site of a former Nasa and US Army rocket range, where screaming wind and swirling snow were playing havoc with rusting girders and disused launch pads.

Nowadays the centre is purely a scientific base, with accommodation for about 80 people in luscious warmth behind its steamy windows. Over hot supper in the cafeteria, scientists and students were discussing their research into polar bear populations, or the effects of climate change on tundra eco-systems.

The area is of particular scientific interest because it is at the meeting point of three “biomes”: the northern boreal forest; the tundra; and the sea ice, where bears disperse in winter. Crucially, being in an auroral oval circling the magnetic North Pole, it is also one of the best places on Earth to view the northern lights.

Dr Chris Brown, a University of Manitoba astronomy professor, was here to tutor our nine-strong “Winter Skies - Aurora and Astronomy” group. Courses run on dates when heightened auroral activity coincides with moonless nights, though frustratingly over the first two days there was no immediate prospect of seeing any sky at all.

The talks and discussion groups on astronomy were pitched at the interested amateur and required little scientific background. Additionally, we listened to fascinating lectures on the history of the region, Inuit culture and the local wildlife. Sadly though, expeditions and activities such as husky mushing and digging snow-holes were cancelled because of the conditions. From time to time I would pile on my arctic survival gear and brave the savage maelstrom for as long as I could stand it. But most of the next two days was spent indoors, absorbing information and praying for clear skies.

The aurora, we learnt, is caused by “solar wind” - electrically charged particles that the Sun flings across the solar system, constantly but with varying intensity.

The particles are drawn to the Earth's magnetic field around the poles, which is why they are visible at extreme latitudes (including the southern hemisphere, where they are known as the aurora australis). As they bombard the Earth's atmosphere, the particles “ionise”, releasing charges visible to us as light.

Refreshingly for a prof, Chris Brown revealed himself to be as passionate about the emotional relationship between humans and

the aurora as about the astronomy. “Aurorae can be good or evil omens, according to culture. When you experience something as otherworldly as this, you understand how these sorts of responses come about... but when you get back to the science, you lose some of this.”

On the third morning I woke to find that the blizzard had blown itself out and that in the steely blue stillness the mercury had plummeted to a skin-searing minus 56C. Wrapping up every square centimetre of exposed flesh, we sped over glassy lakes astride skidoos.

Then we climbed snowdrifts ribbed by the wind into frozen dunes to observe “sundogs” - a phenomenon of the extreme conditions, where ice crystals reflect rarefied rays, to appear on the horizon as twin, haloed suns. In an unsettling foretaste of sorcery to come I was struck with a sense that I was on a planet other than Earth.

That night (and the following night as well), the aurora arrived. I glimpsed it first through the centre's viewing dome, as a river of luminous vapour flowing across the blackness. By the time I had heaped on my polar gear and headed out into the night, folds of glowing curtain were waving overhead. I didn't see a polar bear (though others have) but the aurora was enough for me.

I watched swirls of silk sweeping across the great, black dome of the sky; whorls of light twisting like gigantic skeins of wool; glowing spokes cartwheeling languidly through the heavens. I saw temples of smoke, mushroom cloud explosions raging in silence and splashes of celestial graffiti daubed by invisible hands.

So believe the hype: a majestic display of the aurora is so unutterably bewitching as to create the sensation that you have entered a different dimension. On the other hand I found the experience strikingly different from anything I had expected. For example, the naked eye does not see the northern lights as the bright neon green of a radar screen that I had seen in pictures; that effect is created by photographing them with a long shutter speed.

Similarly, I discovered that the extravagant convulsions of psychedelic violet and amber I had read about are not quite the reality either. Instead, the prevailing shade of the aurora is a ghostly greenish-yellow, tinged with these colours rather in the way that you see rainbows in a pool of oil.

So, the northern lights are not like a mute firework display. They are something much more eerie and ethereal, a coming together of cosmic forces and imagination that leaves the workaday world behind. There are no promises that nature will honour you, but if you ever get the chance to view the aurora, just take it.

NEED TO KNOW

The next Aurora-watching “learning vacation” at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre (001 204 675 2307, www.churchillscience.ca ) is from February 19-24, 2009. The five-night course costs £465pp, including basic accommodation sometimes sharing six-bunk rooms, meals, lectures and activities, and transport to and from Churchill.

Air Canada (0871 2201111, www.aircanada.com) flies from Heathrow to Winnipeg via Toronto, return fares from £770.

Calm Air (www.calmair.com) flies from Winnipeg to Churchill.

Extreme winter clothing from Sub Zero Boots (www.sub-zeroboots.com).

Information www.canada.travel; www.travelmanitoba.com

Where to see the lights

Norway

Hurtigruten coastal cruise fleetoffers “Search for the northern lights” voyages between November and March. From £556pp for a trip between Tromso and Trondheim, including three nights' half board on the ship and flights (020-8846 2666, www.hurtigruten.co.uk )

Alaska

View the aurora from thermal pools at Chena Hot Springs, 100km (60 miles) northeast of Fairbanks and beneath the auroral oval on the Alaskan tundra, and again at Coldfoot in the Brooks mountain range. £1,750pp for a week, including flights via Seattle Experience Holidays (01323 446550, www.experienceholidays.co.uk)

Finland

The lights are a regular backdrop to snowy activities such as snowmobile trips, ice fishing and cross-country skiing at Yllas in Arctic Finland. From £658pp for four nights' half board in a log cabin, including flights Inntravel (01653 617906, www.inntravel.co.uk)

Sweden

Stay three nights at the Icehotel in Swedish Lapland, including a night in a snow room, as part of an activity trip with a night-time snowmobile tour to view the northern lights. From £1,016pp, including flights and B&B, with Discover the World (01737 218800, www.discover-the-world.co.uk)

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