The heart of the aurora chase

The optimistic realist

I always want to see the aurora, I just love seeing her. Every night. I want to see those most amazing displays. I love the colours, I love the movement and the scale of the aurora. It’s never the same, and it is never assured - not at any intensity, not for any duration. You cannot rely on the weather to be perfect, or the forecasting to be perfect. Maybe the clear sky on the map has passed or changed already from the information we can see.

In any moment, there can be endless decisions to make. That uncertainty forces you to slow down and to be in the present moment.

"For me, chasing the aurora is not about waiting on any one perfect night. It's about everything else around it as well. It's driving for hours, spending time in nature, and just being in that raw environment. It's just different from anything else."

So on a night where I’ve planned to leave very late to try to align as best as possible into challenging aurora conditions and challenging weather conditions, I feel an almost heightened sensitivity to everything else that is around the aurora chase as well.

Feeling the gusts of winds on the car across open sections of highway, scanning the sides of the highways for elk and all others, and keeping an eye for any stars demands that kind of heightened sensitivity. It is a stress, but it’s also a beautiful, unique awareness in a life that is a far cry from ordinary.

Leaving town, low cloud persisted for more than 150 kilometres with intermittent rain storms hitting us all along the way to an area I thought we might have a chance.

Every so often we’d stop, stretch our legs, breathe the sweet forest air at highway pull-outs and look up for any stars. There were still only raindrops and almost painful gusts of wind.

Then after many kilometres more, a few stars broke through small holes in the clouds until the sky became more stars than clouds. At first, the aurora was gentle, barely visible with the naked eye. Hours passed, and in the end it was the exact experience I love the most with the aurora. It was like the really good old, old days from Norway. Mountains, volatile weather, a successful chase, and the most beautiful aurora and happy feeling deep inside that almost couldn’t be contained.