Starry, starry night

WATCHING THE AURORA BOREALIS, SHOULD YOU?

It’s 15 degrees below zero, we have a full set of high-durability thermal wear, half a pack of energy bars, It’s dark, and we’re wearing goggles. Let’s hit it!

Somewhere in Northern Sweden

To call Abisco a small town on the Swedish-Norwegian border, would be to call a beat-up dingy a dreadnought. Wedged on the edge of the tundra at 69 degrees north, Abisco is barely a compound of few wooden houses. It has a grocery store, two fuel pumps, a large dog kennel, and an outrageously priced Sami inn. Sami is the eco-friendly term for Lapps. For some reason the internationally known name for the people of Lapland is considered offensive in these parts. If they only knew what the term “Sami Burekas” conjures in Israel. So be it, Samis it is.

Out in the cold

The sled-dogs bark so loud as if trying to wake up the dead in this pitch-black night. It is 6pm and the sun has been beneath the horizon for five hours now. In their furious enthusiasm, they pull the harness to the point of breaking it, or their necks – whichever come sooner. You’d expect all hell to break loose as soon as the sled driver releases the breaks. But to our astonishment, all barking stop at once as the breaks are lifted, and the full power of 12 anxious dogs launches us forward in complete silence!

There are few reasons to venture so far out north in the middle of January. Riding dogsleds, fishing for Grayling in frozen lakes, sleeping in an ice-built hotel, patting muck-covered reindeer, the list is actually quite long. But that’s not the drive fueling a growing number of southerly-pampered tourists to risk frost bites and overdrafts (this thing is expensive) and venture deep into Santa’s domain. No. The biggest reason is to watch the Aurora Borealis, also known as, the “Northern Lights”.

Aurora what?!

If you’ve been living off the grid or are just too mind-numbed from following Instagram celebrities and watching reality shows, the Aurora Borealis is what happens when solar winds hit earth’s magnetic belt near its poles. The high-power collision of both results in something not un-similar to driving electricity through a neon lamp. Of course, this being the Sun and the Earth, the scale is slightly grander than your average Las Vegas strip. Wedged like a veil 70km high – higher than any cloud or airplane – the Northern Lights can spread over hundreds of Kilometers. It can clearly be seen from both ground and outer space.

This all is very pretty, just keep in mind that you’d need total darkness to see it. Luckily with 22-odd hours of it at mid-winter, Lapland has no shortage of pitch-blackness. Just make a mental note to pray to the lords of the weather channel for clear skies. the Aurora Borealis, if you recall, happens above the clouds, not beneath them. If you’ve seen one below, your hallucination drugs must be working very nicely. Please kindly attach your dealer’s ‘gangsta’ nickname and phone number in the comments section below.

Now, where were we?

It’s half past six and the wind has been pounding our faces for the last 20 minutes. I think my nose has fallen off, but my hand is too numb to reach out to my face and find out. The dogs don’t mind the bitter cold. If anything, they thrive on it – must be some kind of radioactive test-lab-gone-wrong breed of super-dogs trained in a secret subterranean camp for the tough and rough (or woof, whichever). I wake up from my hypothermic slumber as the driver cries something in the Sami language, and the dogs, at once, seize all action. They then start sniff each other behinds. Hmmm… not so uber-canines after all.

All right, the time has come to set up a tent. Luckily for us, it’s already there. All we need to do is light up the campfire inside. Somebody has left dry wood and matches. It’s good to know where all that money you’ve paid for the journey has gone to. We set inside to warm our bones to few degrees above zero. After a while, as our brains start to thaw a thought comes into mind;

Aurora Borealis!!!

It’s alive! Well, sort of

We exit the warm orange tent and step into the frozen world outside. It takes a while for our eyes to adjust. The first thing I notice are the stars. Bright, shiny and – wow – so many of them. The last time I’ve seen a starry night like this was on the final ascent of Mt. Kilimanjaro, 4₀ South and 4,700 meters above sea-level. This time it’s 69₀ North, and the bright Polaris flickers almost straight above me, anchored at the end of the now clearly visible Ursa Minor constellation.

But wait a minute, what’s that on the horizon? Squinting, I can barely make sense of the faint green neon-like glow at the distance. Could it be?
I mount my camera on a tripod, set the shutter to maximum exposure. Press the button and wait.

30 seconds later the shutter snaps back with a loud “click!” and the result is clear. Now – much more visible than in real-life, a grand Aurora spans throughout almost the entire horizon. YES! I shout with elation only to realize I’m dazzled by the result I see on the digital screen of my camera, but not so much with what I my unassisted eyes actually see.

The fact is, they don’t see much. The Northern Lights are feeble, and unless you happen to be right beneath them on a bright, dark night, in an especially intense magnetic occurrence, you might be excused for not noticing them at all. Yes, they are that dim.

Should you?

Let’s look at the odds now. To have a fair chance of viewing a fair Aurora you need to be at the right place, at the right time, with the right conditions, and the right equipment. That’s quite a tall order for most.

First, you need to travel way north – past the Arctic Circle, to get a fair chance. For most, that would mean traveling to Northern Scandinavia. If you happen to live in Oslo, good for you. If you happen to live in Los Angeles, or Sydney, well…

Second. Above the Arctic Circle nights are a seasonal thing. Good luck trying to find true darkness between the months of March to September. This leaves us with winter as pretty much the only choice.

Thirdly, unlike my home town on the Mediterranean, Cloud-free skies in Northern Scandinavia are something of a rarity. Out of four straight nights in the cold, only one was clear. Yes, you can have all the constellations lined up perfectly, and you’d never know it. Bummer.

Lastly the whole thing, ain’t cheap. Frankly, it’s damn expensive.

To sum up th rational so far:
An awful lot of effort, for a very little chance, of seeing something that looks much better on a digital camera than in actual life.

So, should you?
Probably not.

Would you?
Are you kidding me?!
Of-course you would!
I was warned, but still I did it anyway.
Probably would again.

Life makes no logic.