SLICE OF HEAVEN
Glimpsingg aurora borealis takes timing, patience
On a clear January night in northern Sweden, after hours of squinting and wondering if this or that small cloud might be the northern lights, a shimmering, aliengreen ribbon unfurled across the sky.
Here, on the shore of the frozen Torne River, just outside the village of Kurravaara, there was none of the mysterious clapping or crackling that Finnish researchers have recorded with the mesmerizing spectacle known as the aurora borealis.
In an era when the digital world has winnowed our attention spans, the aurora borealis still demands presence and patience, a long journey to far northern latitudes, and the fortitude to weather arctic conditions.
Despite these challenges, color-saturated images of the otherworldly aurora in social and traditional media continue to inspire travelers in growing numbers. And while over-the-top experiences abound — you can charter a bush plane to a remote mountain lodge in Canada, rent a helicopter to fly above the clouds in Iceland, or camp on a glacier in Greenland — the greatest consequence of this tourism boom is the expanding range of aurorachasing experiences for every type of traveler.
“Ahhhh! Bucket list!” was the first comment my own grainy, overexposed aurora snapshot received on Instagram that night. Indeed, since the phrase “bucket list” entered common usage — around 2007, when the film with the same name came out — seeing the aurora has been a fixture on many of those lists.
Yet, only a decade earlier, the northern lights weren’t even a blip on most travelers’ radar.
“There was no one else doing northern lights tours in the world,” said Masa Ando, a 34-year veteran of the Japanese tourism industry in Alaska who today coowns HAI Shirokuma Tours.
In the 1980s and ’90s, he said, locals didn’t understand the fuss when Japanese tourists began arriving in Fairbanks. “They were questioning, ‘Why are they coming to see northern lights?’ ‘What’s special about this?’”
From those trailblazing Japanese groups, the northern lights as tourist attraction gained momentum around the globe.
“It’s become a must-do thing in life to see the northern lights,” said Arne Bergh, an owner and creative director of the Icehotel in Kiruna, Sweden, where every winter aurora hopefuls chase the phenomenon he called “nature’s own fireworks” before retiring to their subzero ice rooms.
In Alaska, the number of winter visitors last year surpassed 320,000, an increase of 33 percent from a decade earlier, according to the Alaska Travel Industry Association, which credits most of that tourism to the aurora.
In Canada’s Northwest Territories, meanwhile, the remote capital of Yellowknife has marketed itself as a top northern lights destination, particularly to travelers in Asia. According to a report from the government of the NWT, the number of aurora tourists more than quadrupled over the last six years — a trend evident even in the food scene of Yellowknife, population around 20,000. “We’ve seen the addition of a Korean restaurant, a Japanese bakery and a Chinese hot pot restaurant,” said Cathie Bolstad, chief executive of Northwest Territories Tourism.
The same government report estimated that last season those tourists spent over $40 million.
Beyond North America, the interest in northern lights travel has spurred improved tourism infrastructure across the arctic region, from northern Russia to Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Greenland.
“As soon as you get above the polar circle, you can see the aurora very likely,” explained Trond Trondsen, an aurora expert in Calgary. A native of Tromso, Norway, Trondsen grew up fascinated by the mysterious lights he often saw walking home from school, and later earned a doctorate in cosmic geophysics with a focus on auroral imaging. Today he runs a private company designing instrumentation for aurora researchers.
Although anyone can summon dazzling videos on a digital screen, he insists there’s no substitute for seeing the phenomenon in person.
“It’s so hard to paint a picture of the overwhelming emotional impact that it has,” he said. “I would call it dancing lights in the sky. There’s a rhythm to it. There’s a color scheme to it. It’s almost like heavenly visual music.”
Since auroras can be elusive, travelers are wise to incorporate activities into the hourslong night-sky vigil. Around Kiruna in northern Sweden, for example, most traditional winter pastimes have been adapted to the aurora hunt.
Kerstin Nilsson, who together with her husband runs Ofelas, an Icelandic horse-riding business on a farm outside Kiruna, created one of the first such pairings when they began nighttime aurora-on-horseback tours in 1997. Today you can also hunt aurora on sleigh-rides and snowshoe tours, chase the lights aboard roaring snowmobiles or on sleds pulled by huskies sailing across frozen lakes.
Even when the lights don’t come out to play, I can confirm that it’s an unforgettable rush to bump along forest trails behind a pack of dogs that seems deaf to the musher’s cries. Or supplement the northern lights with a cultural excursion for an introduction to Sapmi, the traditional land of the indigenous Sami people and their roaming reindeer herds.
In 2012, two Sami photographers, Anette Niia and Ylva Sarri, founded Scandinavian Photoadventures, which offers aurorafocused wilderness tours, photo expeditions and cultural experiences flavored by songs and stories that have been passed down through generations. “The Sami culture is a storytelling culture because you had nothing else,” Niia said. “No internet, no books, no texts, nothing. You were alone with a fire in the forest together with your family.”
Many Sami were fearful of the northern lights, Sarri explained, and believed the aurora was a sacred manifestation of their ancestors’ souls. Both women said they’d been warned as children about taunting the lights.
“Me and my sister, we used to go out and tease the northern lights all the time,” Niia recalled, laughing. “It was so thrilling. And when it started to move, then we got really scared and ran home.”
Love the idea of the lights but not the freezing cold? An increasing number of arctic lodging options promise views of the night sky from bed, ranging from innovative bubble tents to glassceiling huts.
And Many cruise lines also pursue the aurora. Hurtigruten guarantees that passengers on its 12-day Astronomy Voyage along the Norwegian coast will see the lights. If not, the next cruise is free.
And last month, Viking Cruises inaugurated a new 13-day sailing to northern Norway, called “In Search of the Northern Lights,” which bills itself as the first fulllength winter itinerary in the Arctic from an American cruise line. According to the company, all six sailings in 2019 sold out.
“It’s experience rather than indulgence,” said Torstein Hagen, the chairman of Viking Cruises.