The blog
Nervous anticipation
I’m not sure which of us was more nervous, and we were all allowed to be about the weather, but for everything else, it had to stay hidden inside. No nervous energy, no obvious hints, nothing out of the usual. Just another night on tour.
For months since the summer, we emailed back and forth over this night. There was so little we could control, but we were as prepared as we could be.
I felt lucky by comparison. I mostly knew about the weather, I knew the aurora conditions were favourable, and I knew all of what was coming, which was one of the most beautiful moments in life. I was glowing on the inside, but that was my secret until later.
In the most typical Whitehorse fashion, the forecasts weren’t great, but reality in the countryside was much, much better. We took an early start on the evening to chase clear sky up north and separate us from incoming cloud as well as we could. Our timing with the aurora looked good for the night. And the rest was just in the perfection of these two.
There is nothing I love more than love.
With clouds closing in on us, and us closing in on 3am, our night ended with one final indulgence of perfection. An auroral breakup danced beautifully overhead, and to end this night in such a way just has to make you want to believe in that inexplicable magic of life.
A love that almost hurts
The beauty sigh, heart racing, chest-so-full-it’s-going-to-explode kind of day
It was the early morning on a full day off after another very late aurora chase. I was exhausted again, or still, but I just had to go. I couldn’t stop myself. So with coffee and snacks, I was soon driving through snowfalls, sunshine, rain and gusty winds.
The forecast was a complete mess, of course, but it all just translated as ‘perfect’ to me.
Shoulder stops all the way to, and inside of Kluane, were more frequent than ever before. These were of course the most beautiful moments of my life so far, and I don’t know if I had ever known such a love and amazement in this world.
On the shore of Kluane Lake, clouds ate entire mountains, and minutes later instead of struggling to hold my hood up over my head against the wind, I could feel the warmth of the sun on my back.
I watched as over and over again, waves came crashing for the shore. The colours, and the patterns of colours all over the lake were unlike any way I had seen this place before. Even the glacial brown-grey of the water was stunningly beautiful. This was a quintessential raw northernness that fills me with the most amazing feeling of home.
Drama in the alpine
The wind was gusting 50kmh just in the city, but my berry anxiety was more intense than my desire to stay cosy — of which there are few things I love more.
I did have a sinking feeling, though, that I was a week or two too late, but this was a day off and I just couldn’t not know for sure.
Lining the path up were bushes of both lingonberries and blueberries, but ripe berries definitely were scarce. The ridge wasn’t all that much better, but the 14+ kilometres of trail did allow for a litre or two of berries still to come home with me, and for several more handfuls to be eaten along the way.
Knowing this was more of a berry trip mission than a photography trip, I had temptations of leaving my photography things at home (what it must be like to not travel as a photographer), but those temptations were short lived.
What if there were caribou along the ridge, or moose, never mind just the autumn colours. So of course my photography bag came with me, and the colours everywhere were naturally maybe the most beautiful I had ever seen.
“This kind of power in nature is something I do love just as much as being cosy at home with a coffee.”
Distant mountain peaks were capped with fresh snow and the weather was overly dramatic. The winds hurt at times and made walking not easy. I was brushed with the mist of a heavy rain storm that narrowly missed my path. The mist felt amazing, but I kept a close eye for any sort of shelter if the storm moved closer over. And for the way home back down, the sun was mostly out in true Icelandic Yukon weather kind of fashion.
This kind of power in nature is something I do love just as much as being cosy at home with a coffee.
The favourite everything
I just can’t get over the beauty and the nostalgia of my early days in Norway, as I say often, maybe too often, and how my life here feels so close to those days. Choosing a highway out of town under cloudy skies was always the way we begun our evenings — sometimes passing through tunnels, other times over bridges. Our drives were long, always filled with eager anticipation, and full of interest and intrigue.
Even as I get used to and settle into my life here, the drives always feel special and spectacular, even by moonless night. We see more wildlife at the sides of the highway than other vehicles, and occasionally slow to a stop to take some moments to love on them. And this humbling feeling of silhouetted mountainscapes cutting into fields of stars has yet to become tiresome.
After more than 100km on this particular night of passing in and out of heavy rain and still under low cloud with just a few small breaks allowing a view to the stars, there was a little light and different sky texture still further on the horizon. Weather maps were clear on our direction of travel, but there remained a question of timing of course.
From a highway pull-out where I thought we may begin to see the sky break, I took a careful look through my binoculars further to the north horizon which did reveal stars and the end of this endless cloudy front. The cloud was low, so our clear break wasn’t likely to be hopelessly out of reach and as we arrived and continued further into our clear skies, the aurora covered the entire sky. Reds, purples and greens faintly everywhere.
It was one of my favourite nights in all my years of this, and it was everything I adore about chasing the aurora.
Acceptance
Driving out of my neighbourhood just before noon today for a quick gas run, 3 cars were abandoned on the side of the road off in our first snow. The roads were snowy, slushy, and ice pellets rained down, but it didn’t seem particularly bad. It made me wonder just what went on outside in the 4 whole hours I slept last night between getting home on dry roads after 4am, and waking up to centimetres of snow and ice sheets.
This is the chaos of the weather in the Yukon. I couldn’t love it more, but it’s challenging. And yes, the stop sign was dancing today, of course.
Not every night lately has been so perfect, and not every chase has met sustained clear sky, but I’m beginning to find calm in this routine of endless chaos through some cloudy weeks.
An old friend in Yellowknife taught me a lot about aurora chasing, but I don’t think he knows it, and I know he would never take credit for it.
He had endless trust in all of this - in himself, in knowledge and information, and in nature itself. And in the end, he always had acceptance in the aurora and the weather we faced there, and there was a calm around him you could feel as a result. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever been able to admire, to study, learn, and imitate. And in some full circle type of way, the end of an extremely chaotic month and a half has brought me so peacefully back into all of that love.
