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.
A love that almost hurts
The beauty sigh, heart racing, chest-so-full-it’s-going-to-explode kind of day
It was the early morning on a full day off after another very late aurora chase. I was exhausted again, or still, but I just had to go. I couldn’t stop myself. So with coffee and snacks, I was soon driving through snowfalls, sunshine, rain and gusty winds.
The forecast was a complete mess, of course, but it all just translated as ‘perfect’ to me.
Shoulder stops all the way to, and inside of Kluane, were more frequent than ever before. These were of course the most beautiful moments of my life so far, and I don’t know if I had ever known such a love and amazement in this world.
On the shore of Kluane Lake, clouds ate entire mountains, and minutes later instead of struggling to hold my hood up over my head against the wind, I could feel the warmth of the sun on my back.
I watched as over and over again, waves came crashing for the shore. The colours, and the patterns of colours all over the lake were unlike any way I had seen this place before. Even the glacial brown-grey of the water was stunningly beautiful. This was a quintessential raw northernness that fills me with the most amazing feeling of home.
Drama in the alpine
The wind was gusting 50kmh just in the city, but my berry anxiety was more intense than my desire to stay cosy — of which there are few things I love more.
I did have a sinking feeling, though, that I was a week or two too late, but this was a day off and I just couldn’t not know for sure.
Lining the path up were bushes of both lingonberries and blueberries, but ripe berries definitely were scarce. The ridge wasn’t all that much better, but the 14+ kilometres of trail did allow for a litre or two of berries still to come home with me, and for several more handfuls to be eaten along the way.
Knowing this was more of a berry trip mission than a photography trip, I had temptations of leaving my photography things at home (what it must be like to not travel as a photographer), but those temptations were short lived.
What if there were caribou along the ridge, or moose, never mind just the autumn colours. So of course my photography bag came with me, and the colours everywhere were naturally maybe the most beautiful I had ever seen.
“This kind of power in nature is something I do love just as much as being cosy at home with a coffee.”
Distant mountain peaks were capped with fresh snow and the weather was overly dramatic. The winds hurt at times and made walking not easy. I was brushed with the mist of a heavy rain storm that narrowly missed my path. The mist felt amazing, but I kept a close eye for any sort of shelter if the storm moved closer over. And for the way home back down, the sun was mostly out in true Icelandic Yukon weather kind of fashion.
This kind of power in nature is something I do love just as much as being cosy at home with a coffee.
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.
