The Sami people of Finland used to imagine that the northern lights were the eyes of their ancestors dancing in the sky. Native Americans apparently believed that they could conjure up spirits by whistling to the lights. “We have some Japanese guests who are convinced that if they conceive a child under the northern lights that their child will be very successful,” laughed Kent Lindvall, owner of the Tree Hotel in northern Sweden, which is prime lights-viewing country.
Even those with lesser expectations have been fascinated by the mythical aurorae for centuries. (Aurora stems from the name of the Roman goddess of the dawn.) Recently, the pull of these eerie, vividly colored lights have grown even stronger. In some cases, such as in Canada’s Northwest Territories, tourists coming to see the lights have doubled in the last year. Suddenly luxury design hotels, complete with spas and glass-walled cocktail bars — like the ION Luxury Adventure Hotel in Iceland (standard doubles from $165) that opened in February of this year — are being built in prime northern lights viewing locations.
That might be because we are now entering a “twin peak” moment in the Solar Maximum cycle, the height of an 11-year sunspot cycle. NASA announced recently that the solar max might actually double-peak sometime in late 2013. That means greater solar activity and therefore brighter and more frequent auroral displays.
The northern lights are caused by the collision of electrically charged particles thrown from the sun’s atmosphere that are blown towards the earth by the solar wind. Normally deflected by the earth’s magnetic field, some particles manage to enter at the poles where the field is weaker, and then collide with gas particles, which determine the color of the lights. Most northern lights are laser yellow-green, which is caused by solar particles crashing against oxygen molecules about 60 miles above the earth. More unusual is an all-red aurora which happens when the particles collide with high-altitude oxygen.
Understanding the science of the lights, of course, does not detract from their magic. “I was in a big open space near the Norwegian border,” recalled Briton Andy Keen, a self-dubbed aurora hunter who five years ago committed his life and career to photographing the dancing lights. “It started up faint and then built up like an orchestral crescendo. It wasn’t just a visual experience, there was a biochemical response. I felt a rush of adrenaline and a whole wave of emotions.”
Even now, after spending what he calculates as 6,000 hours under the northern lights, Keen says he never tires of them. “It’s like when you are child looking through a kaleidoscope. There are such varieties in color and brightness. Once I saw a perfect spiral. Another time it was like a genie escaping a bottle which lasted just a few seconds. I’ve seen an aurora that lasted from sunset to dawn.”
Three years ago, Keen — who splits his time between Wales and the northern Nordic nations — started offering aurora hunting tours to small groups of five or six people at one time. This year he will lead a few dozen aurora safaris in the Lofoten Islands in Norway. (A five-day/night package, including flights from London, starts at $3,225.) It helps to have an aurora hunter on your side; the lights can be extremely elusive. Even when in the aurora zone — in a polar region such as the Yukon, Iceland and northern Scandinavia — during the high season (November to March), it’s still possible to miss the lights. “Some people see them their first night, others are here for five nights and don’t see them,” said a spokesperson for the ION Hotel. The ideal conditions require clear weather, darkness and low light pollution.
If the sky’s the limit, in terms of time and budget, one of the most compelling aurora destinations is the Swedish Laplands. That’s because the world’s most dramatically designed hotel from which to see the lights is the Tree Hotel (from $685 for two; treehotel.se), an odd property made of timber in the backwoods of northern Sweden with five treehouse suites. Each angular room is designed by five different architects, including one suite that looks like a floating mirrored cube.
From there one can travel to the Aurora Sky Station in the Abisko National Park, which, thanks to its microclimate of cloud-free skies, is considered to be one of the best places in the world to witness the northern lights.
“Guests will fly from Copenhagen to Abisko and take a three-hour train to the Tree Hotel and fly from the Luleå airport to Stockholm,” said Kent Lindvall, owner of the Tree Hotel. “We already began seeing lights in August.”