Northern Lights-seen them live?

[shootingstar]

One of the natural phenomena that I want to see in the night sky in my lifetime soon.

My partner has seen them 4-5 times in life. 1 set was black and white in the night sky.

We're going 250 km. north where more northern lights viewing is possible...but even long time locals haven't seen them. It is the prairies...flat open, ec.
We're actually going to a wild buffalo protected park reserve. That's the real reason why we're going.. I've seen bison several times elsewhere...but this is where they are in bigger numbers.

Another I hope to see one day....in life, is a moose.

[ny biker]

Sounds like fun!

I actually can't remember if I've ever seen a moose. Probably not. Maybe when we were in Alaska, from a distance.

The astronauts on the International Space Station have posted some amazing photos of the Northern Lights.

[salsabike]

Yes! We saw them from a plane at 30,000 feet over Newfoundland on the way from Seattle to London in late December. About ten years ago, I think. An amazing sight. Shootingstar, did you know that there's a Center for the Study of Northern Lights in Churchill, Manitoba? AND you can visit there! http://www.churchillscience.ca/about/northern-lights.cfm

I am so tempted. I would love to go there. Explore.org has a live cam there and I've watched the Northern Lights on that live cam all winter.

Ooh...and we saw several moose last year at Glacier Park. The hike to Bullhead Lake there passes several smaller lakes much frequented by moose. Glacier Park is not that far away from you, shootingstar. That's another thing you could look into. Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada borders Glacier Park. Glacier Park is the place of my heart and the most spectacular place I've ever been.

OK. I'll stop babbling now. :)

[Crankin]

I remember seeing them several times as a child. It seemed like it happened on a regular basis.
Have not seen them in the past 25 years, since moving back here.

[OakLeaf]

Sounds like a great trip. When are you going?

I saw them maybe once or twice in North Dakota, but very faint and not all that memorable. Not like some of the spectacular shows I've seen in pictures.

[shootingstar]

Yes! We saw them from a plane at 30,000 feet over Newfoundland on the way from Seattle to London in late December. About ten years ago, I think. An amazing sight. Shootingstar, did you know that there's a Center for the Study of Northern Lights in Churchill, Manitoba? AND you can visit there! http://www.churchillscience.ca/about/northern-lights.cfm

I am so tempted. I would love to go there. Explore.org has a live cam there and I've watched the Northern Lights on that live cam all winter.

Ooh...and we saw several moose last year at Glacier Park. The hike to Bullhead Lake there passes several smaller lakes much frequented by moose. Glacier Park is not that far away from you, shootingstar. That's another thing you could look into. Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada borders Glacier Park. Glacier Park is the place of my heart and the most spectacular place I've ever been.

OK. I'll stop babbling now. :)

Lucky you, salsabike. Thanks for the link webcam. http://explore.org/live-cams/player/northern-lights-cam which during the day might be polar bears. People go there, to see polar bears too.

The University of Alberta in Edmonton, has a website AuroraWatch that tends to focus on predictions, photos on Alberta sightings.
Have been to Waterton Lakes National Park and Glacier Park....we hiked across the Canada-US border. Pics and our experience here. (https://cyclewriteblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/hike-bike-ferry-rail-and-by-car-crossing-the-canada-u-s-border/)

Moose in Banff National Park are getting less because of disease. This park is 130 km. north of us. But they do hang out elsewhere. When we vacationed in New Hampshire, we tried to see moose in a road stretch that was marked all over with moose crossing sign warnings. Nope.

A lost moose did show up in a major shopping mall parking lot that's busy with LRT commuting folks last year. Mid-town in our city (1+ million people). Not suburbs. It was captured and taken away safely.

Ok, sometimes I think it was a dream, but it probably did happen: About 15 years ago, while on national train route, about 20 km. outside of Montreal, passengers, including us, were astonished to see a moose nearly frozen with fear in a cloverleaf highway hub... It was SUCH a weird sighting that even I can't quite believe my own memory now.

[shootingstar]

Sigh...yesterday, a few hrs. after we got home from Edmonton area,there was northern lights in that area. Problem is that a lot of these predictions aren't foreseen 24 hrs. in advance. Yesterday during the whole day, it was bright and blue sky across the prairies for 250 km. going south. My eyes actually hurt looking at the sky.

[salsabike]

Figures, doesn't it? Although the daytime sounds gorgeous. I took the train from Montreal to Vancouver when I first visited Seattle many years ago, and thought the prairies were beautiful.

I visited a fiber artist's studio this week. She is doing huge pieces of work, both wall pieces and free-standing sculptures, inspired by multiple Northern Lights sightings, especially during spring and fall in Iceland--she says the best sighting times there are the equinoxes because it's still dark and night AND the weather is more likely to be clear (so we are now thinking about making our next Iceland trip be in some upcoming September).

Her work looks like this: http://www.gwenlowery.com/index.html and this http://www.gwenlowery.com/Gallery/gallery.html#11

[rebeccaC]

some beautiful fiber art!!....and totally agree on the beauty of Glacier NP....and some incredible expansive views

some of the northern villages in Nunavik, Quebec have some great views of the lights and interesting Inuit myths/stories about them.

I've seen lots of moose from the great hiking trails in Quebec’s Gaspesie National Park. I think the park has one of the largest populations of moose in Canada.

[shootingstar]

Coincidentally I went to see a small art exhibit while in Edmonton of some local fibre and textile artists. Their themes includes prairie landscape....and contemplation on women's historic contribution to prairie rural life and development.

(The right to vote for women in Canadian originated in Alberta...maybe the ranching, farming, cowboy environment just toughens women...to survive and speak up...)

[salsabike]

some of the northern villages in Nunavik, Quebec have some great views of the lights and interesting Inuit myths/stories about them.



THAT sounds fascinating. I've never been further north than Quebec City. Now I have a whole new travel itch--northern Quebec, Churchill--to figure out how to scratch. Shootingstar, have you spent much time in northernmost Canada?

[shootingstar]

I was in the far Arctic, in Iqaluit, capital city (town) for territory of Nunavut. I was yes, on Baffin Island. Last 2 photos in this blog post (https://cyclewriteblog.wordpress.com/2014/07/02/looking-into-canadas-soul-part-i-freaking-out-over-vast-time-distance-and-climatic-toughness/)... I was there for 2 days. Remaining 8 hrs. was stuck at the tiny airport, with everyone else while a winter blizzard blew in at 180 km. /hr. It was so windy that the plane could not land properly ...and had to fly 200 km. west to land at another town area.

The Inuit have a big vocabulary to describe different snow...conditions, qualities, etc. Like the Mongolians, who have a horse culture, where there are a lot of horse related words and slang. (Some people realize that Asians have different words to describe "rice", the types, quality of the grain, the products derived, and slang/idiomatic expressions.)
I believe I bought a book on the language of Inuit as it relates to natural phenomena and natural world. Right now it's in Vancouver.

In 2003, when I was there (for a job interview), afterwards, I went to the general store to see if I could buy some books written by locals. Not surprisingly it was just academic/scholarly texts, not autobiographies in English by the Inuit. Their language became written only the last few hundred years (I think). It's probably living in survival mode and adjusting to a rapidly changing way of life, they have no time to reflect and write. It reminds of the Vietnamese boat refugees who came to North America. Stories of their experiences written by them in English (or French), didn't appear for the general public, until 20 years later....

I did buy a soapstone narwhale whale with whalebone horn, from local craftspeople who will schlep their stuff to you in the local restaurant. The owner allows it for the locals to make money.

I was driven to a tiny suburban hamlet with a one-way 30 km. road. All around was snowy tundra. It was awesome, yet scary. No wonder why people die, easily lost in snowstorms.

While hanging out at the airport, I met an Inuit mother carrying her 1 yr. child in her amauti (in the hood of her Inuit-style jacket/tunic). They were taking plane flight 1,000 km. south to Ottawa to have surgery for his clubfoot. Access to doctor /health care services is serious problem in the far Arctic. Stuff we don't hear in southern Canada. Imagine living a town of 1,000 and there are NO roads. Not anywhere near a river nor water body. Just tundra or snow.

[salsabike]

That is a REALLY interesting blog post!

[ny biker]

It's easy to forget how different things can be for people who live in the same country. A few years ago I visited a small town located in a ravine in Idaho. 50 miles on a dirt road to get there, only 11 year-round residents plus others who spend their summers their. No cell phone service, no locks on the doors in the small hotel, one restaurant/bar which got surprisingly crowded at dinner time.

[rebeccaC]

salsabike...I did a school exchange trip to Ivujivik, the northern most village in Nunavik, when i was in Quebec. A good location to see the northern lights. I did other trips to northern Quebec to see the huge pods of Beluga whales going through the Hudson strait and the calving grounds of the Leaf River Herd of caribou (400,000+ caribou). There is such a pristine beauty to the mediative views of nature from boreal forest to open tundra to sea cliffs...it's worth the effort of a trip.

shootingstar….I looked through my journal from that time and I wrote about the Inuit story that the lights were dancing demons pursuing lost souls. :)

I like this better….

billowing waves of sulfurous fire

swirling mist

diaphanous dust

cascading color

vaporous nymphs and spritely fauns

dance there on jeweled black

[ny biker]

This was posted on twitter today by Terry Virts, an astronaut on the International Space Station. The Gulf Coast from New Orleans to Florida, looking north with the northern lights in the background.

https://twitter.com/AstroTerry/status/602446091779375104/photo/1

The ISS is probably the best place to see the northern lights. :D

[salsabike]

This was posted on twitter today by Terry Virts, an astronaut on the International Space Station. The Gulf Coast from New Orleans to Florida, looking north with the northern lights in the background.

https://twitter.com/AstroTerry/status/602446091779375104/photo/1

The ISS is probably the best place to see the northern lights. :D

:) I think ISS has many fantastic photos of the Northern Lights. I am a sci fi geek and NASA lover. http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/ShowQueryResults-CoolIris.pl?results=Latest_ISS_Imagery

[NoNo]

I was fortunate enough to see the lights when I was up in Hudson Bay back in 2005. Since then, I've been to northern Canada many times, including the Arctic, and never saw it again. I'm so grateful I got to see it that one time, though. I'm not a religious person, but standing out there at 40 below watching that show was about as close to a connection to something greater as I've ever felt. It was just awe-inspiring.

[shootingstar]

Interesting....you must have had a personal or work-related connection to northern Canada at the time for that many visits.

[NoNo]

Actually I'm in a MINI Cooper club, and we have an annual northern road trip. We pick someplace and try to drive as far north as we can, hitting the end of the road. There's something exciting about knowing you literally can't go any further. I've seen some amazing scenery, the people have always been very kind to us, and it's important to me to see such a fragile environment.

[salsabike]

Actually I'm in a MINI Cooper club, and we have an annual northern road trip. We pick someplace and try to drive as far north as we can, hitting the end of the road. There's something exciting about knowing you literally can't go any further. I've seen some amazing scenery, the people have always been very kind to us, and it's important to me to see such a fragile environment.

NoNo, that sounds so cool!

[NoNo]

17653
This was me stuck at the Arctic Circle, waiting out a storm. It was about -30 there.

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This was the ice road, of Ice Road Truckers fame, right up at Tuktoyaktuk, NWT.

17655
This was the first trip north, the one that grabbed me and instilled my love of the great white north. I'd rather go here than a tropical island any day!

[shootingstar]

How difficult was to photo shoot northern lights, NoNo?

I live 1,000 km. south of probably the areas where you went in Arctic. Where I live now, it does plunge down to -30 to -40 degrees C several days per winter. Amazingly a few hardy local cyclists do commute to work on bike. I don't mind it if temperatures dip in winter down to -25 degrees C. After that, it's hard to enjoy stuff outdoors for long.

These are working sled dogs tethered on edge of town, Iqualuit on Baffin Island that I saw when I was there. Real working husky dogs must be outside. Traditionally they are not domesticated to be indoors. I say more earlier in this thread with other linked photos.

17656

The territory of Nunavut, inside their legislative assembly building, there are sealskin covered benches, art wall hangings.. Canada's most unique legislative assembly building in design. Humble but striking. Did you go to Iqualuit.

17657

Bilingual signage at post office. There one does see also trilingual signs.
17658

[NoNo]

Nunavut is on my bucket list. I really want to kayak with narwhals! Very jealous that you've been there. I did notice that the temps didn't keep the locals locked inside. Many times in the frigid cold we saw people walking or sledding around. And the dogs! Even at the Circle the was a dog happily curled up outside in the blowing snow. You could tell he was in his environment.

The lights were tricky to capture. They constantly shifted around the sky so you didn't know where to aim. And sometimes they'd disappear as quickly as they came. I also didn't see the strongest display, but it was still amazing.

[shootingstar]

Don't know how likely one can see narwhals in their habitat. It would be like trying to see orca whales or wild dolphins ...not every one near/on the Pacific coast sees them in the ocean if one tries to plan the site location and time of year. Long time locals know /see them living on the coastal communities in certain areas of British Columbia.

http://www.narwhal.org/tk.html

Canadian Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans database on some research info. re narwhals: http://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/waves-vagues/ There might be more but sadly our national Prime Minister of Canada was gutting this federal govn't dept.'s budget in past few years.

Let us know if you ever see one live!
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I've seen a school of 10 wild dolphins up close about 15 years ago near Vancouver Island, Campbell River on the coast in a zodiac boat wildlife viewing trip, plus some bears, bald eagles and sea lions.
On a different trip,I saw a humpback whale turn over when on a B.C. Ferry ride in the Inside Passage. The whole ferry boat listed slightly when everyone ran to one side of the boat. :)

I actually saw more whales in Hawaii off the coast of Maui.

Wildlife sightings are chance... we took a trip to Elk Island National Park outside of Edmonton in mid-northern Alberta a few wks. ago. The largest herd of bison (900) in North America live there. This park has given bison to other national parks in the US to revive their herds. I've seen herds in other Canadian national parks.

We didn't see any... :(. I guess wrong time of day or they were hunkered down over a hill somewhere. It's not totally free ranging park for humans...

[OakLeaf]

It was cloudy here two nights ago when people were seeing the aurora at far southern latitudes, but here's a forecast page to see when it might be visible.

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-3-day-forecast

Those of you in the far northern US may have a good chance tonight. I'm probably too far south this time.

[OakLeaf]

Now they're saying it could be visible as far south as Baltimore tonight. It's clouding up here, grrrrrrr. Think clear sky thoughts.....

[shootingstar]

Up here in Canada, this is what is said about this solar storm causing aurora bourealis (if clear skies):

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/major-northern-lights-activity-ahead----if-clouds-cooperate/53167/