my first aurora borealis encounter!

photo courtesy of http://www.geology.com/



  Since I moved up north, I have been dreaming of witnessing the aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights.  I had heard many stories growing up as a child about the beautiful colors that danced in the evening sky.  Unfortunately, having mostly grown up in the southern regions of the United States, I never had any experiences with them firsthand. 

  When I moved up north, I immediately signed up for an e-mail alert service that promised to send out messages when there was a good chance for aurora viewings.  While I did get a few alerts, they were generally on cloudy evenings or at times when it was impossible to get out of the city and away from all the light pollution.  I had a close call on my birthday, when apparently the northern lights were out in full force ... at the exact same time I was underground on the metro. 

  So, you can imagine my excitement when a friend called me out of the blue and offered to take me on an aurora hunting expedition.  The weather was looking promising, with clear skies for the first time in weeks.  It was fairly warm out (by northern Canadian standards) and, even better, I had gotten an aurora alert earlier in the evening that suggested there was a 'strong possibility' of seeing a light show.

  So, at 11:30pm, I jumped in to my friend's car and we took off for a little jaunt out of the city and in to the snow covered prairie. 

  It was about half an hour out of town when we first spotted the signs of auroral activity.  It didn't seem like much at first, just a green blob hovering above the horizon.  But as we watched, the colored shape slowly expanded and began to swirl and arc.  Within minutes, half of the sky was painted over in a vivid teal, pulsating and flickering in the most incredible shapes. 

  We pulled over on the side of the highway, a safe distance from the trucks barrelling alongside us with their cargoes of oil.  I quickly bundled up in to my jacket and jumped out of the car.  For the next fifteen minutes, I stood with my head tilted upwards, craning my neck towards the shimmering sky.  It was absolutely incredible.  The whorls of color reminded me of Van Gough's painting, 'Starry Night.'

 As the show began to fade, we decided to keep driving north in the hopes of catching more of the northern lights.  It was a wise decision, because almost as soon as we started up the car, the auroras began to reappear in patches across the sky.  It was utterly enchanting.

  While we were driving, I noticed a very strange arc that was running across the sky, a grayish-green shape that reminded me of a monotone rainbow.  At first, we assumed it was a contrail from a plane, but as the shape slowly expanded, we realized it was part of the aurora borealis.  It was an eerie sight, like some sort apocalyptic portent. 

  As the show began to get stronger, we decided to pull over again.  A dirt road in the middle of a very dark field seemed like an ideal spot. 

  I jumped out of the car -- and was amazed.  The aurora borealis were directly over our heads!! The rainbow-like shape that I had witnessed from the car was now snaking above our heads, weaving in fantastical shapes.  The streak of light was moving incredibly quickly, billowing around and taking on a distinctly gray color.  It was fantastic, beautiful and frightening all at once.

  While I was looking directly up, I kept noticing strange flashes of color out of the corner of my eye.  I thought my mind was playing tricks on me until my friend told me to look carefully at the sky over my right shoulder.  What I saw was literally unlike anything I'd ever seen in my life. It was like I was at the bottom of a vast pool, with waves of color streaking over the surface of the water.  The light was moving at incredible speeds, sliding across the sky in curtains of bluish-green light.  Astounding.

  It was a truly Canadian moment when a chorus of coyotes began yipping and howling in the stand of trees near the car.  An angry farm dog began barking and growling a territorial warning, and it became a canine howling free-for-all.  There was a tense moment when we heard the soon of twigs breaking in the brush nearby.  My friend started to nervously laugh, and when I asked what was funny, she replied, "Oh, I guess I should have remembered that there are bears around here."  Apparently bear sightings are fairly common in the area.

  The show ended sometime after 1:30am.  The lights began to fade, like they were on a dimmer switch.  They didn't completely fizzle out, but they were slowly losing their intensity.  Since we were tired and cold, we decided to huddle back in to the car and began the trek home.

  I finally got back to my apartment around 3am.  We had a rather fun ten minutes of getting lost near a bunch of oil refineries, which were a rather magnificent sight with their blazing lights.  Unfortunately, the smell was nauseating and I felt like breathing in the air was going to induce an asthma attack.

  Soon as I got home, I rang up the one person I knew would be awake, and signed on to my blog to announce I'd (finally!) seen the beautiful lights. And now, as promised, here is the account of my first experience with the incomparable aurora borealis.

  Aurora Borealis Videos:

Aurora Borealis Explained

Beautiful Aurora Borealis in British Columbia

Aurora Borealis in Norway