How dark is the sky in Canada?
Sky darkness for 235 towns and parks in Canada, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 145 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is Cape Scott Provincial Park (21.95, Bortle 2), the brightest Winnipeg (17.02, Bortle 8).
19
Bortle class, 1 pristine to 9 city center
park or dark-sky place
city
Numbers like 21.95 or 16.97 are the brightness of the sky overhead on a clear, moonless night, in mag/arcsec². The scale runs backwards: a lower number means a brighter sky, from about 22 for a natural sky to about 17 in a city center.
How the readings are made
Darkest skies in Canada
- Cape Scott Provincial ParkBritish Columbia · Bortle 221.95
- Gwaii HaanasBritish Columbia · Bortle 221.95
- Muncho Lake Provincial ParkBritish Columbia · Bortle 221.95
- Sir Alexander Mackenzie Provincial ParkBritish Columbia · Bortle 221.95
- Nááts'įhch'oh National Park ReserveNorthwest Territories · Bortle 221.95
Among the places on this site. Plenty of land between them is just as dark, with no town or park to name it by.
Darkest place in each province of Canada
| Province | Places | Dark places Bortle 1 to 4 | Darkest place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alberta | 25 places | 14 dark | Wood Buffalo National Park21.94 · Bortle 2 |
| British Columbia | 72 places | 54 dark | Cape Scott Provincial Park21.95 · Bortle 2 |
| Manitoba | 6 places | 5 dark | Atikaki Provincial Park21.93 · Bortle 2 |
| New Brunswick | 11 places | 7 dark | Mount Carleton Provincial Park21.86 · Bortle 3 |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | 8 places | 7 dark | the Mealy Mountains21.93 · Bortle 2 |
| Northwest Territories | 3 places | 3 dark | Nááts'įhch'oh National Park Reserve21.95 · Bortle 2 |
| Nova Scotia | 6 places | 4 dark | Sable Island National Park Reserve21.95 · Bortle 2 |
| Ontario | 57 places | 21 dark | Polar Bear Provincial Park21.95 · Bortle 2 |
| Prince Edward Island | 2 places | 2 dark | Pituamkek National Park Reserve21.59 · Bortle 4 |
| Quebec | 32 places | 17 dark | Anticosti National Park21.94 · Bortle 2 |
| Saskatchewan | 11 places | 9 dark | Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Park21.95 · Bortle 2 |
| Yukon | 2 places | 2 dark | Tombstone Territorial Park21.95 · Bortle 2 |