Coldfoot Alaska: The Aurora Borealis

Aurora over Coldfoot Camp (Painting by me)

Besides the sled dogs (and getting to see my little brother of course) the best thing about Coldfoot in the winter/early spring are the Aurora. I have to admit that when I was planning my trip viewing the Aurora was not on the top of my list. I'd seen them as a kid in northern Wisconsin and even once when I lived in Michigan.
I begrudgingly waited until three in the morning to see them for the first time in AK (and they did come out), and after that I was so impressed that every night after that I stayed up till 3 or 4 in hopes they'd put on a show for us.
First of all, the aurora I saw in the Midwest were nothing at all compared to the ones in Alaska. From the latitude of Michigan the Aurora take up only a sliver of the sky, to the north just at the horizon. And while I remember the green tint of the light...it looked like it could have come from the ground up, like light pollution from a city. It was neat to see, but not very impressive. But the Aurora in Alaska...WOW! To put it simply there is just no comparison.
It's partly the staying up all night in anticipation that makes it exciting. Our first night we tried to see them we hung out in our hotel room and checked every 45 minutes or so from 11:00 to about 1:30. Then our expert Aurora watcher (aka my little bro) thought he saw the beginnings of some action. We bundled up as best we could and headed out back of our hotel. It was FREEZING! We didn't know at the time but Jay was right, and the Aurora were starting. It's really hard to tell them at first because they look like wispy clouds, and are so dispersed (or faint) that they look more white than green. If you've ever seen the milky way (sort of a faint white band that stretches across the sky) that's what it looked like. Needless to say standing out in the frigid cold (and it was really windy that night) to look at barely there Aurora was not my idea of a good time. So we went in and headed to the front of the hotel, near the lobby where we thought we would close the lights, sit by the windows and watch to see if anything happened.(Then we would run outside.) Apparently some other people had the same idea. There were two women from Oklahoma City, a couple from Prescot AZ (parents of one of Jays co-workers), and a girl from Taiwan I think. We all sat in the dark and chatted while taking turns to get up and smush our faces to the window to see if we could see anything. I definitely recommend this strategy if you are planning on staying up all night to watch. It is just too cold to stay outside the whole time while you are waiting for them to start. And you want to be comfortable enough to enjoy them when they are in full force, and not be worrying about whether or not your toes are going to freeze and fall off.

Ribbon of Aurora (paintings by me)

 Around 3:30 one of the Oklahoma ladies came rushing in from outside shouting "Come quick! They're starting!" We all cut our conversation short and grabbed our hats, mittens, scarves, zipped up our coats, grabbed our cameras and dashed out the door after her. At first it was hard to see there were little spots that were definitely green, but you had to sort of look at it out of the corner of your eye to see it move. Eventually more spots formed, and they became shadowy curtains floating in the night sky. For some reason they reminded me of the robes that the ghosts wore on the Scooby-Doo cartoons. They got brighter and dimmer and sometimes you'd be scanning the sky in front of you when all the action was to your back, or above your head even. It was a full 360 degree experience, and we found ourselves turning in circles in hopes of catching every particle (or wave if you prefer) of light. Everyone was so excited, and shouting "Oh, look there!" "Oh wow! Look at that one!" I couldn't smile on account of my face being frozen, but I was smiling on the inside for sure. While it was really beautiful it was hard to ignore the fact that my legs felt like they were being pricked with needles (although I was happy I could still feel them) and the moisture in my nose was freezing to my nose hairs and pulling them whenever I took a deep breath. Had I been better dressed I am sure it would have made a big difference, but I live in California and have no need of snow pants and -50 degree rated coats. Anyway they were worth it. The aurora gave us a pretty good show rising up over Coldfoot Mountain and slowly flashing across the sky to the southeast. I tried to take pictures which was utterly hopeless, so I finally gave up and just enjoyed them. They faded out after about 40 minutes, so we all went back inside to warm up and we waited until about 3:30 or 4:00 before calling it a night.
 Two nights later Jay and I stayed up again keeping watch and around 1:30 or two the show began. It was apparent right away that this one was going to be much bigger. The green was brighter and deeper. It was as if someone had increased the contrast, and so the sky looked blacker and the lights shone more. It had been cloudy all that day, and we thought the chances of us seeing anything were slim to none, but then right around midnight the sky cleared. (So let that be a lesson to any of you who might make it up there to see them sometime, don't be fooled by a cloudy day!) And what a show! Just in the first ten minutes we were out there it put our whole previous viewing to shame! There was more movement, and more...shapes I guess you could say. At one point a there was a giant, elongated  "C" extending from Coldfoot Mountain hovering above us and continuing all the way to the south (see painting). When I looked straight up I could see the bottom of the curtain moving up and down like it was riding along top of invisible waves fifty miles up. I saw curtains and ribbons of alien green light all over the place and they all swayed silently in the invisible solar wind above my head. It was...magical. If I didn't know already how the Aurora formed, I would have been convinced of magic that night. It was (is) just that...awesome and weird. I was again cold, but the lights were so spectacular I forgot about it (well, that and I borrowed Jays coat:) It was just a beautiful experience. I'll never forget it.
In real life they look nothing like they do in photos. For one they move and form in a dome above you. You have to look sideways and up and around back over your shoulder to really see everything. And the other thing is that especially when they are right over you, you realize how big they are. In real life they look 100 miles long by 20 miles tall! They are just enormous! But I feel like in photographs they look about the size of your average cloud, and that is not at all the case. Jay and I stayed up (drinking lots of coffee and hot chocolate) and watched till the end.

Paintings switched around (paintings by me)

It is absolutely worth staying up all night, or three nights if necessary, to see. Even if you have seen them before at lower latitudes, there is no comparison to seeing them in the winter above the arctic circle. The cold, the utter darkness, the mountain air, the coffee freezing in your cup, the tingling in your fingers, the eerie dance of the Aurora....it's surreal, and almost feels supernatural. It almost felt like I was born to live just to experience that moment (but that could have been the bourbon talking:) It's probably the closest I would say I have come to feeling like the earth itself is alive.
Sometimes for no reason at all, it's like my brain takes a step back, and sees the bigger picture, and I am in awe of it. It's mind blowing to think that this place is my home! This is where I belong! Out of all the universe I was lucky enough to  be born here, on a planet where in the winter, in the far north, green lights dance across the sky in time to the cosmic tune.

Explanation of paintings:
First painting is of me, Jay and our Aunty Paulette watching the Aurora behind the hotel. I tried to take photo's but none of them came out, so I specifically tried to remember that moment so I could paint it when I got home. While it might not be an exact likeness of anything or anyone, I feel like it accurately depicts the scene as I remember it. The essence of the moment was captured.
The second and third are the same two paintings. The first is how I intended them to be set up and the second is just switched and looks cool, but somewhat inaccurate. The first setup is of my favorite view I actually saw in real life where the Aurora formed a giant ribbon in the shape of a C across the sky. On the left is Coldfoot Mountain and on the right is the other mountain to the east (don't know the name) so it's supposed to be a panorama kind of. The second switched set up looks cool, but isn't accurate in that I never saw the lights diverging from each other, and the mountains are no longer in their accurate positions or shapes.