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The same extreme reaches of northern Europe that provide endless days of summer sunshine promise something just as remarkable during the otherwise daunting winter months: The Northern Light, or the Aurora Borealis («dawning of the north»), an eerie, silent display of dancing lights in the heavens above.
On most clear winter nights, Arctic winds collide with the electron-charged atmosphere of the earth, creating an aurora of these swirling apparitions around the magnetic North Pole. The predominant color is green, but, during major nighttime shows, the skies also take on fleeting pink and grey curls along the edges, with a glimmer of lilac in the center. This is winter’s best and brightest spectacle.
To learn the cold, hard scientific facts, the Northern Light Planetarium in Tromsoe, gateway to the Arctic and Norway’s self-dubbed “Paris of the North,” has the technology and film documentaries. But city lights can lessen the intensity of the spectacle: Local Sami (Laplander) guides take visitors by snowmobile, dogsled, or reindeer sled to the frozen inlands of Northern Norway.
The once nomadic Sami are concentrated in inland towns such as Karasjok (305 miles / 485 km east), capital of the Sami region, and Kautokeino (263 miles / 418 km southeast).
The four days’ long Northern Lights Festival of classical and contemporary music is arranged mid-late January.
Read also Northern Lights.