It seems every time I tell someone I live in Alaska, their reaction inevitably includes some remark about how cold and/or dark it must be in winter. I'm not exactly sure what people think goes on up here, way up north, though I guess Hollywood has its own ideas:
While it's certainly true that Alaskan winters can be daunting, they have rarely seemed to me significantly colder or darker than those of other places I've lived.
The memories I have of the winters spent in Madison, Wisconsin, for example, can't help but include those daily long (looooong) walks from the parking lot to the vet school, and the suffering inflicted by skin-peeling windchill in the dead of winter. At least Anchorage doesn't really have wind.
Still, 20-below is 20-below.
Nevertheless, one of the boons of the Alaskan winter darkness is the occasional appearance of the northern lights, the Aurora Borealis. Reflections in the Earth's atmosphere of solar flares and winds, Aurora's fantastic light show can vary almost infinitely in color and form.
Many years ago, when I lived in Fairbanks, the clear skies of its broad river basin setting provided the perfect palette on which Aurora could craft her magnificent nocturnes.
Since moving to Anchorage, however, I've discovered that the combination of increased cloud cover and the interference of its "big city" lights interferes with the ability to see the Lights, even if they are out.
Nevertheless, yesterday morning as I was letting the dogs out into the yard before I left for work, I saw a hint of a smudge in the clear northern sky, nothing much more than small faint cloud… but the cloud was vertical. And pale green.
I hurried to fetch my coat and hat to stand on the back patio and was soon rewarded by the familiar green & white ribbons skittering across the sky. They didn't last long, maybe only ten minutes or so (I'd heard they were spectacular around 2am, when I'd been fast asleep), but worth every minute of the reminder of sheer diversity Nature's beauty has to share with us, if only we open our eyes.
Still, in Alaska, Aurora-viewing is something of a competitive sport. Everyone, it seems, has a better story than yours -- Auroras that were brighter, longer, or more colorful than whatever you happen to be talking about. The ribbing is all good-natured, however, since it seems the underlying appreciation for our good fortune cannot be denied, even by the most curmudgeonly of sourdoughs.
 |
| "I remember, back in 1952…" |
I realize the futility in attempting to convey my favorite Aurora experiences, since they're visual experiences, only in my own head. But it's fun to recall them, and it's a good excuse for me to show some beautiful photographs which really aren't so different from the Lights I've seen in the past. So, without further ado, here are
My Top Five Auroras:
#5 - The Red Aurora (Anchorage, ca. January 1999):
Most Auroras are green & white, but sometimes other colors peek in, maybe at the very tips of the bigger flares. One evening, my husband & I saw a shimmer in the night sky as we were driving home from a movie, so we kept driving, to access a darker area of town with fewer streetlights. That way, we could get a better view. We were rewarded with a display of lights almost entirely red in color -- very rare. (Bonus memory: The only other person in the park was another woman who'd also come out to watch the lights, and I'll never forget that the trunk of her car was wrapped entirely in duct tape. Très Alaskan.)
#4 - Love under the Lights (Fairbanks, February 1998):
My first winter in Alaska found me falling for a guy whom I later married. One of our first dates involved walking the dogs one night, and the Aurora came out while we were walking. Kissing him under the beautiful lights, sharing our own heat in that Fairbanks-cold night, is a magical memory I'll always cherish (even though the husband in question has gone by the wayside).
#3 - Early season Lights (Fairbanks, August 1997):
During my first year out of vet school, I worked for a practice that had an after-hours on-call service. I was terrified at least half the time I got called in, worried I would encounter a condition I had no idea how to treat, and having to handle it all on my own. So after one particularly harrowing adventure with a dog who'd been on the losing end of a tussle with a porcupine (Eighty-pound dog, too keyed-up for the anesthetic to work properly, swinging his quill-infested face around while I tried to pull the quills…)
… it was actually dark as I was driving home, Fairbanks' legendary "midnight sun" finally, in August, willing to go to bed for a few hours each night. That was my very first Aurora sighting, a single vertical ribbon extending from the western horizon to the skies above my head. It didn't last long, but its beauty reassured me I had chosen the right place for my new home.
#2 - Skies Ablaze (Cooper Landing, March 2009):
A friend was getting married the next day in Cooper Landing, some eighty miles south of Anchorage. Rather than make an early-morning drive, my husband & I decided we would take the dog south & spend the night in a local motel, then get up and sneak out for a quick backcountry ski outing before the wedding the next morning. -- Letting the dog out at 1am, I walked into the motel parking lot and found myself under a sky ablaze with the most vigorous, spectacular Aurora display I've ever seen. For hours, the sky was covered from horizon to horizon with ribbons and waves, flames and spirals. I'd always heard people say the Aurora makes a sound, but that was the first and only time I'd heard the electric hissing attributed to her most lively displays. That the Lights preceded my friends' union into a life to be spent together could hardly be interpreted as anything other than a good sign.
#1 - A Bittersweet Farewell (My backyard, Anchorage, September 2011):
Some friends & I had gathered to bid a bittersweet farewell to our friend, Nicolette, who was returning to New Zealand with her family. It seemed unlikely she'd ever make her way back to us from so long a distance, so I think many of us held in our hearts the sadness that we might never see her again. As we sat around the bonfire, recounting her many Alaskan escapades -- including, but not limited to, the challenges of adapting her beloved 1967 Mustang to the harsh Alaskan climate -- Aurora showed her colors. Again, a rarity to see Lights in Anchorage at all, but to have them shine so brightly and for so long, while sitting in the comfort of a deck chair in my own midtown backyard, surrounded by beloved friends, seemed a gift to all of us and a fond farewell from Alaska herself to our beloved friend.
Like most things in Life, I guess, Aurora is either there or it's not. You can appreciate it or not: I remember my husband gently shaking me awake one night as he returned home late from his restaurant. He whispered excitedly, "The lights are out." Very tired and reluctant to leave my warm bed, I muttered, "Are they green?" "Yes," he replied. "Then I'm not coming out," I petulantly replied, miffed to be woken for something as "mundane" as ONLY a green Aurora!
But as a backdrop for Life's other adventures -- the wedding of a friend, falling in love, the emerging confidence of a young woman exploring the world -- Nature certainly does a remarkable job of providing some spectacular embellishments.
