Prince George has a winery, a DJ and even a denture clinic named after the spectacle. Tantalising photographs of the Northern Lights, taken locally, are regularly shared online. At 53° north, our chances seem good.
But will we be treated to the greatest show on earth during our time here?
A cold evening in December
This story starts in late December 2020. My Aurora app notified me of possible activity that evening and so we decided to don our thermals and head out.
We drove north out of the city but immediately ran into difficulty: Ice was rapidly building up on the inside of our old, poorly heated SUV and the windscreen was becoming dangerously close to opaque!
Thus began a mad drive when I would scrap enough ice away for Jacob to be able to safely see out, give my wrist a break and scan the sky for the Northern Lights, then resume scrapping once the ice had built up again.
Eventually we opened the windows, somewhat solving the problem by allowing our warm breath to escape. Though cold, this method did mean we could actually see the two moose we encountered. Which was a good job as the first one ran out in front of our car (more about that experience here)!
No Northern Lights, but two beautiful moose. Not bad for a first go.
A freezing evening in February
You may remember from this post that we endured a week in February when temperatures plummeted to around -30C. Though it was, without a doubt, a stupid idea, we went out one evening that week after another notification said the Aurora may be active.
With flasks of hot drinks, snacks, blankets, a new plug-in car heater and wearing so many layers walking was difficult; we ventured out into the night and found a dark spot in an area called Salmon Valley, about thirty minutes outside of Prince George.
Our dark spot was incredible and, while there was no sign of the Northern Lights, we stayed for a while and enjoyed the pitch black sky littered with more stars than I’ve seen visible since a trip to Africa.
After standing on the roadside star gazing, letting the cold (did I mention it was around -30C?!) creep through your clothes and chill your bones, it was an unpleasant ride home.
No Northern Lights but an immense display from the stars (and thankfully we returned with all our fingers and toes).
A warm evening in April
There had not been a cloud in the sky all week and we had been enjoying some unexpectedly hot weather for Spring. However, we had no plans to be out that evening until my friend Lindsay (you can meet her in this adventure) text me the following magic words: ‘guys look to the north, it’s the northern lights’.
Wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown, I grabbed my coat, Jacob grabbed the car keys and we jumped in the car to drive north. Before we even reached the end of our street we spotted a green haze in the sky and realised, in utter disbelief, that the Aurora Borealis was right here in the city.
After thirty exciting minutes of driving toward a changeable, misty green sky, we were in the perfect spot, on the side of a road, in the pitch black with a wide open view of the northern sky.
When we first got out of the car the Aurora was a thin, green streak in the sky. It looked like a luminous green shepherds hook laid on it’s side, the crooked end of the hook was particularly misty and a vibrant green.
Slowly before our eyes the Aurora changed: from a sliver with a hooked end, it become thicker, filling more of the sky. Most of the misty streaks were horizontal but occasionally there were vertical streaks which came and went. Like the beam of a UFO or a spotlight on a stage. These streaks had a wispy quality, lasting only a few moments before disappearing.
Sometimes it would visibly flicker and changed before our eyes. These were the moments, when Jacob and I would turn to each other and say “did you see the red?”, “did you see the blue?”; because it was during these momentary flashes that other colours would appear in the pulsating green, so fast you barely believed you had really seen them.
After a while, perhaps because our eyes had adapted, the whole of the northern sky was filled with a smokey, green glow and the brighter streaks rippled on top of this background.
Eventually we drove back into the city. The roadsides were lined with people who, like us, had dashed out of their houses and driven north. As we discovered later, Aurora displays this good, where you can see the colours with the naked eye, are actually extremely rare. Therefore, even in northern British Columbia, where this unpredictable and illusive show is relatively common, this was a remarkable evening.
When we arrived home we rushed upstairs and to our amazement the sky from our upstairs windows was restless and green. We slowly got ready for bed rushing back every few minutes to check what it was doing, how it had changed and whether it had gone away.
Of course, seeing the Northern Lights in a wide open, dark sky as it swirls and sparkles is mesmerising. But there is something really special about being in your own home, doing your normal night time routine, while the otherworldly, mysterious Aurora dances outside your window.
As Jacob said in disbelief, summing up our luck and gratitude succinctly, “I’m cleaning my teeth looking at the Northern Lights”!
Photographs
Here and here are Instagram accounts where you can see photographs taken in and around Prince George that night. Look for the photos taken on the 16th April 2021 and you will get a sense of what we saw. Being a unique display, local news also covered it, check out this article and this one for more photographs.
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Read more about life in Northern British Columbia…
Fall in Northern British Columbia: Warm days, amber leaves and Pumpkin Spiced Lattes
Prince George: The armpit of British Columbia or British Columbia’s best kept secret?!
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West Country Wandering 
You were very lucky Helen what a great thing to see !!!!
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