by Paul LeFevre
After travelling to Seattle, Washington last week and missing a chance to see my first Aurora Borealis due to clouds, I was hoping for better skies when I went to Vancouver, B.C. this week.
I arrived on Tuesday afternoon, to clear skies and warm (for Vancouver!) temperatures. Conditions looked good for some night-time viewing, I just had to find a way to get out of the city lights.
During my business meetings that afternoon, I mentioned to the folks there that there had been some recent strong solar activity, and that there was a good possibility of seeing the Northern Lights that night if we could get out of the city. Several of them got excited about the prospects (being all from Canada, they had ALL seen Aurorae before, and were somewhat nonchalant about it), and decided that our already-scheduled dinner out would be moved to a spot about 1-1/2 hours outside of Vancouver, on the other side of the mountains that ring the city.
We drove out to dinner at about 7:30 PM, and arrived about 9:00 PM -- and the sun was still up! Days are very long at these Northern latitudes. The group sat around having drinks and discussing business, and then got on to dinner. At about 11:30 PM, I excused myself to take a look outside (it finally got dark at about 11:00 PM). Stepping out of the restaurant, it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the dark, and I walked around the side of the building away from the front lights. Scanning the Northern skies, I began to discern a slight green glow, which I at first took to be light pollution. Realizing that Vancouver was to our South, I concentrated more on the sky -- and as my eyes began to adapt to the darkness, I realized that my "light pollution" was showing vertical streaks of alternating brighter and darker areas, and was moving slowly towards the North-West. Eureka! My first Aurora!
After standing there transfixed for about 15 minutes, watching the slowly changing patterns in the sky, the rest of my group joined me outside (they were wondering what had happened to me!). A few minutes later a waiter joined us (the bill had not yet been paid!), then several other patrons who were leaving the restaurant. With various people coming and going, I stood outside for almost an hour watching the celestial light show. Most of the time the streaks varied from pale to intense green, with a few whitish streaks visible, and very occasionally an area would change from green to yellow to red, then fade back to green. The lights glowed enough to cast very soft shadows once you were dark adapted, and as I would look from the North to the Zenith and towards the South, I could make out faint traces that would occasionally extend well beyond the Zenith then fade out before reaching the Southern horizon.
It's easy to understand the allure of this phenomena...the softly changing glow was soothing and exciting at the same time, and added a magical quality to an already beautiful place. I could have stood there all night taking it in, but the hour was getting late and the moon was peeking its just-past-full head over the South-Eastern mountains and washing out the sky, so we had to abandon our reverie and head for the hotel.
Vancouver now holds a great memory for me, and I'll be sure to schedule another trip up there as soon as I can!