Tales of the beautiful everyday from the North
Cat and mouse
Nights of clear breaks always require some degree of anticipation of auroral activity. These nights become more of the… not if we will find clear sky, but when we should find clear sky. Waiting or chasing, to anticipate or run with.
It’s an out of this world game of cat and mouse, except there are two mice, sometimes running in opposite directions, and you have to catch them at the same time.
“…you said it was a quiet night!”
The aurora consistently filled half the sky tonight, but without much structure or visible movement. It was beautiful, but what I felt was quiet.
‘Quiet’, when the aurora appears over half the sky, is of course, subjective.
Sighs of love
Littered throughout our night were falling stars, including in the above.
Hours passed to an ever changing, but generally quiet arc of northern lights laying across the northern horizon. I was eager to share at the beginning of the night how it’s possible for the aurora to change so quickly that you just can’t imagine it, not realizing of course that several hours later, she would change just so quickly beginning in only seconds from a few faint curtains.
Before that time, and despite temperatures dropping outside, it was just the cosiest night of warm, genuine conversation, laughter, and all things photography and stargazing.
My bleeding heart melted over love, stories, and swelled at a cuteness impossible to describe. And after hours of this, and a spectacular show, the position of the stars had swung dramatically from the beginning of the night and lights had been turned off. Warm beds were very much calling to us all.
The favourite everything
I just can’t get over the beauty and the nostalgia of my early days in Norway, as I say often, maybe too often, and how my life here feels so close to those days. Choosing a highway out of town under cloudy skies was always the way we begun our evenings — sometimes passing through tunnels, other times over bridges. Our drives were long, always filled with eager anticipation, and full of interest and intrigue.
Even as I get used to and settle into my life here, the drives always feel special and spectacular, even by moonless night. We see more wildlife at the sides of the highway than other vehicles, and occasionally slow to a stop to take some moments to love on them. And this humbling feeling of silhouetted mountainscapes cutting into fields of stars has yet to become tiresome.
After more than 100km on this particular night of passing in and out of heavy rain and still under low cloud with just a few small breaks allowing a view to the stars, there was a little light and different sky texture still further on the horizon. Weather maps were clear on our direction of travel, but there remained a question of timing of course.
From a highway pull-out where I thought we may begin to see the sky break, I took a careful look through my binoculars further to the north horizon which did reveal stars and the end of this endless cloudy front. The cloud was low, so our clear break wasn’t likely to be hopelessly out of reach and as we arrived and continued further into our clear skies, the aurora covered the entire sky. Reds, purples and greens faintly everywhere.
It was one of my favourite nights in all my years of this, and it was everything I adore about chasing the aurora.
Acceptance
Driving out of my neighbourhood just before noon today for a quick gas run, 3 cars were abandoned on the side of the road off in our first snow. The roads were snowy, slushy, and ice pellets rained down, but it didn’t seem particularly bad. It made me wonder just what went on outside in the 4 whole hours I slept last night between getting home on dry roads after 4am, and waking up to centimetres of snow and ice sheets.
This is the chaos of the weather in the Yukon. I couldn’t love it more, but it’s challenging. And yes, the stop sign was dancing today, of course.
Not every night lately has been so perfect, and not every chase has met sustained clear sky, but I’m beginning to find calm in this routine of endless chaos through some cloudy weeks.
An old friend in Yellowknife taught me a lot about aurora chasing, but I don’t think he knows it, and I know he would never take credit for it.
He had endless trust in all of this - in himself, in knowledge and information, and in nature itself. And in the end, he always had acceptance in the aurora and the weather we faced there, and there was a calm around him you could feel as a result. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever been able to admire, to study, learn, and imitate. And in some full circle type of way, the end of an extremely chaotic month and a half has brought me so peacefully back into all of that love.
The good for the soul kinds of nights
It’s been far too long since my last post, but these days I feel like I can barely keep my eyes open. Late, late nights and far too much to do has led to far too little sleep. But somewhere in there is still this overwhelming love of the aurora and clear sky chases through mountainous silhouettes.
The first half of September brought quiet nights of delicate structures, graceful dances, and rainbow colours filling the skies for the better part of a week.
We snuck out of cloud often, on the run almost once per evening, as is assured here. Soft arcs of aurora on the horizon persisted through our nights, rising and falling, and rising again until ghostly structures pulsed over half the sky above us.
These were the nights of cold, humid air, endless conversation and inspiring photography with a returning friend. They are the kinds of nights that fly by, that I could live forever, and that end too soon.
