The Aurora Borealis
‘No pencil can draw it, no colours can paint it,
and no words can describe it in all its magnificence’
wrote Payer, a famous observer of the Northern Lights.
The Northern Lights are a natural phenomenon caused
by electrically charged solar particles passing into
the Earth’s atmosphere. Also known as the Aurora
Borealis, which means ‘dawn of the north’,
the aurora can appear abruptly, filling the sky with
incredible speed with great arcs as ghostly wisps in
green, yellow, red and violet dance above the horizon,
before disappearing again.
This surreal light show has inspired myths and legends
over the years. The Inuit of Greenland believed the
lights came from the realm of the dead, caused by the
spirits trying to contact their living relatives, and
Norwegian sailors would say that the display was the
souls of young maidens waving and dancing in the night’s
sky. No-one has seen the Northern Lights and not been
caught in awe by this magical display, a celestial show
which truly needs to be seen to be believed.
All of our Northern Lights Voyages provide an opportunity
to witness the Aurora Borealis, but it is in their very
nature that this can never be guaranteed. While there
have been sightings of the Northern Lights in late September
and at lower latitudes, you are most likely to see them
above the Arctic Circle between November and February.
Many of our travellers consider the Aurora Borealis
to be the simply the ‘icing on the cake’
of an already remarkable holiday in the Arctic. |
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