See North America’s night sky through an Indigenous lens
These unique dark sky experiences from New Brunswick to New Mexico allow travelers to immerse themselves in ancient origin stories and cultural interpretations of the moon and stars.
Last August, elder Marina Moulton of the Tobique First Nation in northwest New Brunswick, Canada, laid 22 ancestral wampum belts on folding tables for that evening’s star party. Cedar boughs were placed underneath the tables “for protection and for it to absorb all the negative energy that is brought there,” she explains.
“Our great grandparents and grandfathers were not allowed to use ceremony,” says Moulton, the keeper of the wampum belts and keeper of the star lodge ceremony. “The Europeans didn't allow them to practice ceremony, to sing songs, to dance, to gather, or speak the language.”
Moulton’s ceremony—showing “how [her] people connected with the stars”—was a highlight at that star party in Mount Carleton Provincial Park, a Royal Astronomical Society of Canada-certified dark sky site and also part of her ancestral grounds. Dating to the pre-contact era, the wampum belts belong to the Wabanaki Nations, also known as the People of the Dawnland.
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“All our sacreds that were confiscated, stolen, or sold now are finding their way back to us,” Moulton says. “Every teaching, every song, every meeting that our people had pre-contact is stored in these sacreds.” The fragile belts are not allowed to be touched or photographed, but after the talk, many people remain to ask questions and be near the belts.
During the ceremony, “we connect with our ancestors, and we get to celebrate and visit with them, and they're starting to get to know our people again,” Moulton says. Her grandson, McKael Bear-Moulton, admits that it’s a “little scary” to share their ceremony, given their painful history after contact. “But we want people to come to the ceremonies and connect with their ancestors because it's a very special thing,” he says. “It's a very real thing.”
Across North America, many tribal leaders are sharing their rich ancestral stories and learning, of both day and night skies, with respectful visitors. These oral events often retell a tribal origin story.
New Brunswick
Cynthia Sewell, an elder from the Pabineau First Nation in northern New Brunswick and an advisor for the Kiknu Indigenous Center at the University of St. Francis Xavier, Nova Scotia, describes now as a good time for these experiences. She and her sister, elder Constance Sewell, have shared their tribal star stories through events organized by astrotourism consultant and amateur astronomer Stéphane Picard, the owner of Cliff Valley Astronomy, and they will continue to in 2026.
Our people “were very much astronomers,” says Cynthia. “This was our survival. We observe [how the universe is moving] very closely, and it tells us when our medicines are going to come, tells us the best time to pick our medicines—not from a narrow lens of isolation, but from it living—how the universe is moving, how we're moving with the cosmos.”
Sewell also points out that modern science is catching up to ancestral stories of their people coming from the stars and the fact that “we are all made of star stuff,” as NASA states.
In addition to storytelling, the experiences may include smudging with sage for cleansing and drumming. “Our indigenous drumming … is mimicking the heartbeat of the universe,” explains Constance. “We're mimicking the heartbeat of ourselves, how our connection is with the universe.”
Alberta, Canada
In her fireside chat experiences, Matricia Bauer, the Cree owner of Warrior Woman in Jasper, speaks of “indigenizing the world, which means bringing us back to a core center of being with nature.” Indigenous interaction with the stars and sky “is actually a way of life that guides us every day throughout our lifetime,” she says, not just during astronomical highlights, such as an eclipse or aurora borealis.
At Métis Crossing, visitors can stay overnight in eight domes and two sky-watching cabins to sleep under windows opening to the sky on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River. “It’s a unique opportunity to wake up at different times of the night to see how the stars are moving around you or how the aurora borealis is dancing above you,” says Juanita Marois, the resort's chief executive officer. The Métis people, one of Canada’s three indigenous nations (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) “come from the joining of the First Nations and the European cultures after the fur trade,” she explains.
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During their program “Whispers from the Stars,” a knowledge holder shares stories and traditional star-related crafts. During “Star Stories,” visitors gather around a fire while an elder shares how “Métis people used the skies and the stars to move across the plains, to make decisions of when we’re going to plant our gardens and when we’re going to go hunting and trapping and that connection and relationship with the skies.” Marois hopes that those who experience this place and stories leave with a better appreciation for Métis culture and values.
Quebec
Aux Cinq Sens is a First Nation-owned lodging option located in the first International Dark Sky Reserve, Mont-Mégantic. Naturalist Benoit Paquette leads their year-round "Evening Under the Stars – A Senses of Wonder" that combines scientific knowledge with indigenous values. Benoit’s partner and co-owner, Paule Rochette, is Wendat, and their property is part of the hunting and fishing grounds of her Wendat ancestors. Paquette wants visitors to “enter into relation with the starry night—that it’s not something completely distant and incomprehensible. It's something that I can relate to … something familiar,” he says. “As a First Nation business, [we try to] help people give credit to the ancient stories, the traditions. It's important knowledge for humanity. It's not just stories.”
Nibiischii offers an "Astronomy and Stargazing Evening with Cree Culture" that includes stories connect the stars to history, the land, and the cycles of life combined with high-tech telescope viewing to “reconnect with a vision of the sky where science and culture meet.”
In Northern Quebec, Inuk-guided tours focus on the aurora borealis and its ancestral interpretations, including Nunawild and Ungava Polar Ecotours in Nunavik.
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British Columbia
Many indigenous-owned lodgings and campgrounds across British Columbia offer excellent night sky viewing, including the Fraser Canyon Riverside geodesic glamping domes at Great River Fishing.
Ontario
At White Pine Lodge Algonquin in Lake of Bay, Ontario, which is 51 percent indigenous-owned, visitors can hear "Indigenous Star Stories" from the Algonquin, Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples from a First Nation naturalist, focusing how land-based activities relate to the moon and stars.
New Mexico
Navajo-led and owned Navajo Tours USA hosts "Sunset and Night Sky Tours" in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, part of their ancestral land known as the Bisti Badlands. The area is known for its hoodoos, otherworldly rock formations.
“A lot of our travel guests are seeking out authenticity,” says Kialo Winters, the founder and chief executive officer who is of Diné and Zia heritage. Their tours “provide a safe access to our sacred lands,” rather than having unregulated visits there. “We want our travel guests to reflect on a deeper connection to the land and the mysteries of the place they are walking through indigenous perspectives … to learn through storytelling and not just sightseeing.” Identifying medicinal plants and minerals and sharing their science along the way, Winters hopes to give guests a greater appreciation for indigenous philosophies and values. The hike often pauses for storytelling, meditation “and just overall basking under the canopy of the night sky.”
He advises to “have an open mind and open heart. To not come in with assumptions to the land’s history and also assumptions to indigenous perspectives.”
Arizona
“An Indigenous-led sky experience isn’t about memorizing star names or comparing constellations—it’s about listening and being present,” says Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan, the Tohono O'odham Nation education development liaison at Kitt Peak National Observatory who also leads tours there. The research site is located on I’oligam Du’ag, a nearly 7,000-foot-high mountain sacred to the Tohono O’odham Nation. “Understanding the Indigenous lens means recognizing that some knowledge is shared publicly and some is not, and respecting those boundaries,” she adds.
The site’s new Windows on the Universe Center for Astronomy Outreach focuses on the mountain’s history, as well as the relationship between the observatory and nation members. Ramon-Sauberan hopes visitors “leave with a balanced understanding of both astronomy and Tohono O’odham Himdag—the way of life. When people recognize that the sky connects science, culture, and responsibility, the experience becomes much more meaningful. Indigenous knowledge is living and ongoing, not something from the past—we are still here! And that the sky has always been a guide for how we relate to the land and to one another.”
At the immersive Substance of Stars experience at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, visitors can virtually enter the land and experiences of four indigenous groups through sky-dome videos that change the time of day, seasons, and night sky. Their exhibits also showcase contemporary art from the Haudenosaunee, Yup’ik, Diné, and Akimel O'odham Tribes.
Wisconsin
On the shores of Lake Ontario, Wild Rice Retreat offers regular night sky storytelling with Ojibway elder Robert Houle. He describes his people as having “almost a sixth sense awareness” of the natural environment. Many tribes focus on the phases of the moon which also name the time of year and how to survive or celebrate it.
They also appreciate and celebrate unusual night sky and solar occurrences. “The Anishinaabe people [which includes the Ojibway] have always revered the northern lights as being the communication and the dancing of our ancestors who have walked on,” explains Houle. “It gives us hope and renewal.” Each January, Bayfield’s annual Dark Sky, Star Bright celebration features several indigenous night sky storytellers.
These knowledge holders and elders are universally eager to tell and retell these stories to listeners who are willing to open their hearts and minds. “Some of these legends, some of these stories, are based on millennia of experiences passed down from generation to generation to generation,” says Houle. “That is lost knowledge ... if we don't carry it on.”
