Seeing it coming

Our night started early, but with more beauty to the camera than to the naked eye. I was desperately hoping for the aurora earlier in the night than later. Heavier cloud was forecast to be on the way and it’s direction closed off our options pretty early. We saw the clear sky over us become eaten up by cloud while still waiting on the aurora to break through, but sometimes staying put and patient is the best way forward.

“We are so lucky now. It became clear again just in time. Perfect perfect.”

I was in touch with another guide a ways through the night and we confirmed our locations with each other, seeking more favourable weather, but the truth is, we probably couldn’t have been more lucky.

The sky cleared up above us and the aurora danced and danced. It was as beautiful to stop and watch as it was to continue to photograph. I loved the clouds, the colours, the scale, and the feeling of magic being in the right place at the right time.

Breaking from endlessly clear

When I open Environment Canada’s app every day, and the next 7 nights show just clear with overnight temperatures somewhere in the -30s, it does feel like it’s never going to end. But I try not to take it for granted. Nothing is forever.

So after weeks of near perfect weather every night beginning from the middle of February, a few messy nights varying between partly cloudy and mostly cloudy were now on the immediate horizon.

There’s always some room for flexibility in these kinds of nights, and we took full advantage - leaving earlier or travelling out from town further. And on both nights, we were lucky to keep ourselves in good weather where we were met with beautiful, beautiful shows from the aurora. Clear skies held, and clouds held back for just long enough. It was just what we needed and it humbly felt very, very lucky.

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Savouring the simple

For these couple nights, the weather was still very good, but did require conscious decisions to drive us away from looming cloud. We were soon warming up into the -20s, which as is tradition, brings a little more scattered cloud. However it was nothing to be so stressed out over, not yet anyway. And with tax season officially upon us, there’s more than enough stress to go around without bringing distant cloud banks unnecessarily into things.

So before more cloudy skies began rolling through over the next several nights, we savoured our time at some favourite locations on ice roads.

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Very luckily, a fireball!

A sight for sore eyes

After just the night before being out until almost 4am, this was a sight for the sorest of eyes.

We were already on our way out of town early, and before we could get too far, we made an abrupt stop at a small pullout just off the Ingraham Trail. Within just some seconds, the sky began to light up and dance. The aurora took over the entire sky. It was literally breathtaking.

You’ll never hear me ‘rate’ a night or compare nights, but this was overwhelming, even for me. I didn’t know where to look, where to photograph, how to absorb every moment of it. It was magic. It really just felt like magic.

And after the half hour or so show, I just couldn’t get over how different night to night this experience could be. It is just the best.

The daylight saving time dread

I wasn’t going to do it this year, I really wasn’t. I was just going to let the daylight saving time change pass without it’s annual mention on this blog.

BC had announced they are remaining permanently on daylight saving time, and then the very next day, I wrote a lengthy and exhaustive email to the Government of the Northwest Territories urging them not to make the same mistake, and then I was just going to leave it. I wasn’t going to bring it up on my blog this year again too.

However, shortly after we did once again insist on taking ourselves further off solar time, we had the kind of night which would have been much less painful on standard time. It was the kind of night that demanded a lot of patience, still in the -30s of course. Hours passed and passed but we remained, and finally passing 3am, we were there under exactly what we had been waiting so long for. But the 4am return to town, at the end of an exhausting season through a never ending winter, cumulatively, does take a toll.