THE Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, are one of nature’s most dramatic and awe-inspiring displays. Solar rays skip off the Earth’s atmosphere, resulting in dazzling splashes of color across the sky. The trouble with Aurora is that it can only be seen at night and only in very high latitudes. People living in Alaska, Canada, and Norway enjoy Aurora the way people in Micronesia enjoy a good sunset: it has the power to compel you to stop and look, but the Wow Factor may have dimmed a bit with familiarity.
Not so for me. I still love a Saipan sunset as much as the first one, and I have never seen an Aurora. Plenty of pictures, yes, but not live, not in person. So, my family and I, along with Rick (who blew up my truck) and his wife Sonia, have come to Alaska to experience the elusive Aurora.
We chose a week that held out hope for clear weather. I say clear because there is not really such a thing as good weather in Alaska. This week held promise because historically it has been the best week to catch Aurora, being typically clear skies and long nights. A snowstorm was due just before we would arrive and another would hit after we were scheduled to leave, but we had a promising six days in between.
Alaska has a way of reminding visitors of who is in charge, which it certainly did for us. That storm that was scheduled to blow in before we arrived obviously did not read the forecast. It lingered a while, then left behind another day of cloudy residue. The result was a winter wonderland on the ground, as everything was covered with a fresh layer of pure, white snow. The mountains were breathtakingly beautiful and even the city of Anchorage looked pristine and snuggled in. But no Aurora.
The next several days we fared no better. No new snow, but cloudy skies so gray that it was impossible to tell what time of day it was. Not that it matters here. In January, the difference between sunrise and sunset is about four hours, so the night lasts twenty hours anyway. Again, we thought that worked to our advantage in seeing Aurora, but it does not matter how long the night is if the sky is a menacing mass of clouds. We took in more local sights on the ground and kept one eye on the sky above us, hoping for a break in the cloud cover.
By the third day, we grew desperate. We compared weather forecasts to the map of Alaska to determine where clear skies might be found. Denali, Fairbanks, Seward, we were prepared to drive anywhere to see that for which we came. But you can no more view Aurora according to a clock than you can climb a mountain by your watch. When you face the most grand and powerful that nature has to offer, you quickly learn you are not in charge, only a passer-by. For all our cleverness and running around Alaska trying to find a break in the clouds, we always missed it.
Toward the end of the week, we thought we had it. The forecast called for clear skies over the Kenai Peninsula. But radar also showed a massive storm out over the northern Pacific, which could drive ashore into Canada or could swing north and hit Alaska. We held a counsel and decided to go for it, we would run to the Kenai and hope the storm went our way. What were we thinking?
The storm turned north, of course, and unleashed a snowfall that was measured in feet rather than inches. We had reached the end of our week and had not seen Aurora. But we explored Alaska, covering thousands of miles, dozens of towns and meeting hundreds of people, so I would not call the endeavor a failure.
We know Alaska much better than we did a week ago, and we have an excuse to return in the future. We still search hopefully to see Aurora Borealis in person, and there may still be a village or two in Alaska we have not visited. I wonder what a ticket to Norway costs.
BC Cook, PhD lived on Saipan and has taught history for 20 years. He currently resides on the mainland U.S.
BC Cook
