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During
the summer my younger sister Nancy called me and told me that one of the things
that she had always wanted to do was to see the Aurora Borealis, the Northern
Lights and asked me if I would be interested in taking a trip to see them with
her. I too have always wanted to see an Aurora so I said yes and we went
into the planning stages of our trip. Auroras are caused my solar flares
and sunspots. There is a 22 year cycle for sunspots and we are currently at point
in the cycle were there is an increase in sunspot activity so our best chances
of seeing an aurora would be this year. This was one trip where the Internet
was a big help. The first place that we thought about going was Alaska and
then we thought about Iceland. During my search of the internet I found
a wonderful site which has a map Auroral
Activity. As it turns out, auroras have their peak activity in an oval
that is centered around the magnetic north pole. After deciding on the location we needed to decide on a time to go. My sister works in a nuclear power plant and doesn't have much flexibility in her vacation schedule (In case you are wondering, she didn't glow too much in the dark). My wife Sally was sick for most of this past spring and summer and eventually underwent surgery in the fall, so the early part of the fall was out. According to some of the people in Yellowknife, October and November were the cloudy season so that left us with a choice of either late December or waiting until the spring time. Auroras happen all year long, but up north the nights are shorter in the summer so there are only a few hours to catch an aurora. I looked at the two dates that we had to work with and did some checking. During the December date the moon was in the last quarter phase. That's a pretty bright moon and would make the aurora look less intense. The spring time was near first quarter which also meant a bright moon, but in the spring the moon would be bright early in the evening and then there was the question of black flies in the spring time. I began to do some more checking and realized that in december the sun set quite early so we would have many hours of dark before the moon would rise. So, we decided to go december 16 - 20 -- the dead of winter.
Even though the tour company would be issuing us cold weather clothing I decided
that I would buy some clothes just in case. I do enough stargazing that
having some good warm clothes would be useful since it can get very cold in
the desert at night. I bought LL Bean's warmest down parka with a comfort
rating of -55F. I bought some boots with a comfort rating of -65, some
mittens, some extra thick socks and sock liners, a hood to cover my face and
a neopream face mask to cover my nose and mouth. I also bought some chemical
hand and foot warmers. They come in a plastic pouch that you break open
and once exposed to the air they start heating up and stay warm for about 8
hours.
My
sister arrived from Phoenix the day before our trip and the next day Sally drove
us to LAX to catch our flight. The flight to Edmonton was uneventful.
Once at Edmonton we had to check our luggage through customs. After customs
we needed to go through the checkin process again. We were a little bit
confused about where we needed to go and so we went to one of the Air Canada check-in
desks and asked what to do. The gentleman behind the counter told us that
we need to go to the north terminal and go to gate 16. We were just about
to leave to go to gate 16 and I turned around and asked him "what about our luggage?".
I looked like he was debating the question for a while and the said "I can take
care of it here", but he said it in such away that neither my sister or I had
a good feeling about giving him our luggage, but we did and then went to gate
16. Or, at least we tried to go to gate 16. That entire section (gates
14- 22) of the airport was closed. We walked around for a bit and finally
found someone to ask why the section was closed. They told us that it happened
frequently when there weren't any flights going out for a while and that we should
come back an hour before our flight. We had three hours to kill so we got
some food and then sat in some chairs and read. If you are ever in the Edmonton
airport check out the books store that is there. Unlike the typical airport
book store this one had a wide variety of books from Feynman's "Surely Your Joking"
to the "Kama Sutra" to the "History of the Northwest Territories"
to "Investing for Canadian Dummies" (perhaps the title of that last one was The
Dummies Book for of Investing for Canadians). The flight from Edmonton to
Yellowknife was on a 737 which was much better than I expected, but it was one
of the coldest flights that I have ever been on. I was very happy that I
had my down parka with me. We actually saw an Aurora from the plane! 
We
were only at the airport for a few minutes when a man who looked like he was in
his early 30's introduced himself as Benoit from Raven tours. He told
us that it would probably take about a half hour to get our luggage and then,
if our luggage wasn't damaged we would go directly to the hotel, otherwise we
would probably be at the aiport another half hour to deal with the damaged luggage.
Now, I was nervous, because he made it seem as if luggage was routinely damage,
so type of special Canadian service that they threw in free of charge. He explained
to us that when the temperature got as cold as it was that hard shelled suitcases
would often crack. My sister had a hard shell suitcase. I had a nylon
duffel bag, which Benoit said was the best thing to bring to Yellowknife.
After a few anxious minutes, our luggage arrived safely and we walked to the van
to go to the hotel. The Van was in the parking lot unattended with the engine
running. In Yellowknife theft isn't a problem, but if you turn your engine off
there is a very good possibility that it was start again. We went the hotel
were Benoit checked us in. We then went to our rooms to dump off our luggage
and then back downstairs where we were issued our cold weather clothes that consisted
of an insulated jumpsuit, boots, a hat and gloves. Benoit told us that the
jumpsuit should be enough to keep us warm provided that we had a couple of layers
beneath it, but that many people would also where their coats over the jumpsuit.
We asked Benoit if a person who lived in L.A. or Phoenix would be warm in just
the jumpsuit. Benoit thought about it for a minute and then said to us "wear
everything that you brought." We went back to our room to change. 
We
got into a van and drove about a half hour to Prelude Lake. There were about
12 of us, me, my sister and 10 Japanese tourist. They took us to a round
hut that was kind of igloo shaped. The hut had a bunch of chairs and tables
and a stove in the middle. The tour guide spoke for about 10 minutes in
Japanese and then turned to us and said "I told them that now we would go out
and see the aurora. If you get cold you can come back here and get warm.
We will server some food in about an hour" and that was it. I wondered if the
Japanese tourist were getting more information or if their's was just more formal.
We then went off to a place that overlooked the lake where the view of the sky
was relatively unobstructed by trees. To the east was an aurora which extend
to the north. At first it looked a bit like a bright cloud in the sky.
The aurora didn't have any of the vivid colors that one sees in photographs.
Having done amateur astronomy for a number of years I can easily see color in
objects that a lot of people can't and to me the aurora had a definite green tint
to it. As we stood out there the aurora shifted and moved more to the south
east and higher in the sky. The cloud became to take on the more familiar
shape of a curtain of light. My sister felt that the green color had become
more pronounced and I could see some yellow in the aurora. As time passed
more and more people went back to the hut to get warm. I stayed out to look
at the aurora. At one point I noticed that my eyes were bothering me.
It took me a little while to realize that some of the moisture from my breath
was escaping my face mask causing little icicles to form on my eye lashes.
I tried to take a couple of pictures, but it was very difficult. First, according to my camera's specifications its operating range is down to 15F. The current temperature was -29F. The lens on my camera wasn't wide enough. If you want to get a good picture of the aurora you need a very wide angle lens. Further, I needed to take off my mittens to work the camera. I tried putting on my gloves, but they didn't give me enough dexterity. Taking off my gloves was a big mistake. Within a few seconds my hands were bitterly cold and I needed to go back to the hut to warm up. After warming up a bit we went back outside. The aurora was much brighter and more colorful. Unfortunately the moon had risen by this time and the sky was brighter. Soon we left to go back to the hotel. By the time we got to bed it was 3 am, but at least we had gotten to see an aurora.
On
our first day in Yellowknife we woke up at around 10 am, about the same time the
sun was rising. We went down to the hotel restaurant and had the buffet.
A little while later Benoit took us on a tour of Yellowknife. I think I
actually found Benoit to be more interesting than the tour itself since I was
curious as to why someone would want to live in Yellowknife. Benoit is a
French Canadian who moved to Yellowknife 11 years ago and has been working for
Raven Tours the entire time. He only lives in Yellowknife during the winter.
During the summer he works in the Canadian Rockies. He has a cousin who
has a French Canadian restaurant in Japan and he had spent 7 summers working in
his cousin's restaurant. The Japanese that he learned was very helpful to
him since the bulk of tourist that visit Yellowknife are Japanese. He told us
that Raven Tour gets about 8000 tourist a year. Yellowknife has the highest average
salary level of any city in Canada. Yellowknife is the capital of the Northwest
Territories and is the most northern city in Canada. Yellowknife was currently
having a bit of a food shortage. Food has to be trucked in from the south
and there is no bridge across the McKenzie River. In the summer time there
is a ferry which is used to bring the food across and in the winter the river
is frozen solid and the trucks simply drive across the frozen river. Normally
Yellowknife doesn't get very much snow because it is too cold to snow there.
They usually get a little bit of snow in October and November, then it gets really
cold, so the snow stays around all winter, but they don't get much more.
Benoit told us that the people in Yellowknife don't bother to put on snow tires
because there is so little snow. This year they got more snow than usual.
The snow formed an insulating layer over the thin ice on the McKenzie river, keeping
the ice from getting thicker. The ice was too thick to run the ferry and
too thin to drive a truck across so food had to be flown into the city
After the tour Nancy and I went back to the hotel. I thought about going to the museum that was up the road a short distance, but it was very cold and the sun was about to set (3pm). While we were up in Yellowknife I wanted to try eating Caribou. It turned out that the hotel restaurant served caribou so we decided to eat there since Benoit had told us that it often took a long time to get a taxi and it was just too cold to walk anywhere. The caribou wasn't as gamy as I thought it would be. It looks like beef and has a beef like flavor, but with a stronger after taste. The mushroom soup at the restaurant was great.
On
the second night of viewing we went with a larger group of Japanese tourists.
There were about 20 Japanese tourist with Nancy and I being the only non Japanese
tourist. The weird thing about the Japanese tourists is that they were mostly
girls. About 80 percent of them were girls in their 20's, possibly early
30's. There were several couples in the group and one guy that was traveling
by himself, but the rest were young, single women. One of the tour guides
told me that young Japanese men were more interested in extreme tours such as
going out on a glacier and spending the night in a tent. Personally, I think
the one single guy on our tour had the right idea. Just him and twenty twenty
girls. We went to the same lake the second night only this time we had a
cabin instead of the hut. The cabin was nicer since it had wood paneling
that gave it a warm look and it it had a sofa and some overstuffed chairs near
the fire place. Since we were out at the lake at 9 p.m. the moon wouldn't
rise for a number of hours yet. The night was also clearer than the previous
night and the aurora was much brighter than the night before. The aurora
started as a curtain of light that stretched from the north to the north east
and was much greener than the night before. The aurora moved overhead and
then became a curtain of light that ran from the south east to west. After
about a half hour Nancy and I went back to the cabin to get warm and to have a
little bit of caribou stew. After warming up we went back outside.
The aurora was still running southeast to west. Then, the aurora started
to brighten and the curtain of light started to wave. The movement of the
aurora quickened and soon the entire thing was shimmering and swirling.
The colors brightened and became more pronounced with green, yellow and violet.
The lights began to dance overhead and move more to the north and the west.
Pillars of light would shoot down toward the ground while other parts of the sky
swirled and still other parts stood like thick curtains of light waving in the
wind. The Japanese girls started giggling and clapping with glee.
Nancy and I also started clapping as we watched this wonderful light show that
was better than any fireworks display I have ever seen. In about 10 minutes
lights slowed and the aurora went back to looking like a curtain of green and
white light that slowly moved and shimmered.
Part
of our tour package included a dogsled ride. There were 6 of us in our group
and usually they can put six people into the sled, but they couldn't fit all of
us so they split it into two rides with 3 each. The smallest person sits
in front, so it was me in the back followed by my sister with a little Japanese
girl in the front. The front is really the worst place to be. It was
-41C that day and when the sled is moving the wind chill factor makes it bitterly
cold. It is quite easy to get frost bite during the 40 minute sled ride.
The sled ride went around a small lake and took about a half hour. Since
the lake is flat the dogs can get up a pretty good speed. Huskies are strong
dogs, but they aren't particularly fast dogs so the people that offer the dog
sled ride breed dogs that are part Husky and part Greyhound. A big problem
with the ride is trying to stay warm. Even though I had the neoprene face
mask on the area around my eyes was cold. The hood of my parka gave me tunnel
vision and there is a tendency to use the person in front of you has a wind break,
further blocking your vision. The ride was interesting, but I felt sorry
for the dogs. The dogs looked pretty cold to me and it was obvious that
these were work animals, not pets.
We actually went to the Dog sledding site twice, once during our city
tour and once when we went on the actual sled ride. You will notice
that some of the pictures look a bit darker than others. I used two different
cameras with different film which account for some of the differences,
but the main difference was the time of day. Night falls pretty quickly
in Yellowknife.
After
dog sledding Nancy and I decided to take a walk around the city and do a little
shopping. We went to the mall and a couple of stores that sold souvenirs
and then went to a restaurant to have lunch. A big problem is going from
the cold outside to the warm stores and back out again. You have to dress
very warmly to go outside, but once you get inside you have to start shedding
layers or you overheat and start sweating. We talked to a few of the locals.
It turns out that most of them don't see auroras very often ("you'd have to
go outside to see them"). We did talk to one woman who told us
that she and her husband like to go out and look at the auroras. She told
us that when they really get going you can hear them. Later another person
also told us that you can hear them. After we returned home I saw a science
show on auroras that said that many people claimed to hear them, but so far
there was no scientific evidence to confirm that auroras make a sound.
After we got back from Yellowknife I place the photographs that I took on this
web site. A couple of weeks after posting my pictures I received email from
a woman who worked for a Canadian publishing company. She had found my photos
on the web and wanted permission to use one of the photos for a Canadian educational
magazine. I was very surprised that she was able to find my web site and she
told me that she had used one of the search engines (Yahoo, I think) and had
searched for "Canada and cold temperature" and my web site came up
about sixth. I agreed to let them use one of my photos and they told me that
they would send me a copy of the magazine once it was published. The picture
that they chose to use was a picture of my sister Nancy standing beneath a temperature
sign that reads -38. The magazine was a 6th grade science magazine with the
specific issue dealing with Heat. After I received the magazine I sent it to
my sister with a note telling her that she would have to read the magazine to
figure out why I sent it to her. So, now I am an internationally published photographer.
See pictures from the magazine.
On the third night
we drove out to the same spot that we had been to the first night. The aurora
was prettier than the first night, but we didn't get to see it dance the way that
we had the second night. By this night Nancy was up to wearing 8 layers
of clothing (I was still wearing the same thing I had worn the first night).
She reported that there seemed to be a point of diminishing returns and that anything
past 7 layers didn't seem to do much good. All of those layers of clothes
really cut down on your ability to move. They also weight a lot, but the
end of the evening we were very happy to shed the extra weight. On the bus
ride home the aurora brightened and we all set about to scrap of the ice that
had formed on the inside of the window so that we could get one last look at the
aurora before heading home The plane to Edmonton was very cold. Since the airport at Yellowknife
is small you have to go outside to get on to the plane. They load the
plane from both the front and the rear doors which means that all of the heat
in the airplane can escape from these two doors. Once it was time to board
we all trooped out to the plane. While boarding there was one guy at the
front of the line who was having trouble storing his stuff into the overhead
compartment so the rest of us had to wait outside while he got settled.
Finally we got inside the plane, but by the time everyone had been packed on
board the temperature of the inside of the plane had dropped close to the temperature
outside. I never took off my parka, hat or gloves the entire trip to Edmonton.
Fortunately I was able to fall asleep which made the trip easier. When
we got to Edmonton we only had a half hour to board our connection to L.A.,
but we needed to grab our luggage and clear customs. It took a long time
for the luggage to appear and when it finally did Nancy's suitcase was missing.
We waited and waited, but five minutes before our flight it was clear that her
suitcase wasn't going to arrive. While we were waiting for the luggage
to show up Nancy had gone to our gate and notified the people there that we
were waiting for luggage to arrive. We rushed to our gate where
an agent was waiting for us. She had to request that customs be reopened
so we could get through. The customs agent was a real jerk, but we made
it to the plane at the last minute. When we got to LAX neither Nancy's
nor my luggage was there. Nancy's was still lost and it looked like mine
had arrived too late to be put on the plane to LA. We filled out lost
baggage claims and by the time we were done Sally was at the curb to pick us
up. We were both happy to be back in the warmth of LA.