Dancing Aurora in Yellowknife

My co-worker Dean and I arrived in Yellowknife mid-afternoon and so far I have to say that I like this town. I know I have been here for less than 24 hrs and I am probably jumping the gun a bit in saying that. It was sunny and warm for this time of year at a mere -18c. I could be singing a different tune if it had been -40c. It's likely to get colder tomorrow so I guess I'll see how I feel tomorrow. But nonetheless, -18c is still somewhat cold with the windchill (maybe -23c or so today) if you aren't dressed appropriately. Your tongue would definitely stick to metal in this sort of weather as I quickly discovered. No, I did not purposely stick my tongue to a metal parking meter or anything like that! But rather, I have these special mitts that have a zipper along the side so you can slide your hand in-and-out just in case you need to use your fingers... you know for things like taking photos and such. Anyhow, I forgot that the zipper on my mitts are made of metal and when I attempted to use my mouth to open the zipper, my tongue froze to the zipper latch! I tore a small part of my tongue onto the zipper of my mitt! Ouch! *Note to self: do not use mouth on metal zippers!*

The trees here are short and watching from the plane during our descent, Yellowknife looked like snow and ice covered by fuzzy moss. Apparently as you head north toward the tree line, most of the trees are about 3 feet small. I would look like a giant at a staggering 4'9 1/2" next to those trees!

A Sunday night in Yellowknife seems to be fairly quiet. Dean and I decided to have dinner at a Vietnamese noodle joint and I'd have to say that it was the most expensive bowl of Pho I have ever had! When I was in Vietnam in June I paid the equivalent of $1-2 CND for a bowl of Pho with all the fixings - mint leaves, basil, bean sprouts, etc. Here in Yellowknife fresh herbs are hard to get and they are very expensive. So I ordered a bowl of Pho with beef balls and rare beef and it was $9.95 just for the noodles and beef! No fixings. Just a few chopped green onions and that was it. I couldn't even get beef flank or tendons as I would normally! Oh well.

After our less than exciting but very pricey bowls of Pho, we decide that we should walk around town and see if we can see the Aurora Borealis a.k.a. the Northern Lights. So we wander around the parking lot of the hotel and wander down the highway and low and behold we see a light stream of green light bending and curving in the sky. At first it was very faint but gets brighter from time to time. Nothing too spectacular because there was too much light pollution in the city. So we decide to head out on to a frozen lake to get a bit further away from the city lights. We tread through a foot or so of powdery snow on the lake and the Aurora Borealis look brighter. But still, I was not satisfied. Dean suggests we look for a cab to take us outside the city limits so we head back to the highway in hopes of finding a cab.


Within about 5 minutes from when we get to the highway, a cab drives by and I wave it down. The cabby is a Francophone named Gilles from Quebec City and he drives us out about 10-15 minutes outside of town. We pull off the side of the highway where it is dark and as we get out of the cab I see one of the most spectacular things of my life..... dancing ribbons of light across the night sky! Strings of green and some with hints of pink and red! And they do dance! They danced in waves and ripples, flashing red and green marching in and around the starlit sky. It was absolutely stunning and literally took my breath away for a moment. But after that brief breathless moment (most of you know that I can be quite chatty), I was overwhelmed with glee and felt deeply fortunate to have the opportunity see such a wonder of nature. All I kept saying was "This is beautiful! I can't believe how spectacular this is! This is fucking beautiful!"


Well, I'm off to bed as work awaits me in the morning. I hope the weather is nice tomorrow night as well. I want to see more of this amazing phenomenon and will take every chance I get to do it!