Above Alaska’s frozen landscape, every so often during the coldest, clearest and darkest part of the winter, the sky lights up with a dancing celestial curtain of brilliant green, red and purple swirls illuminating much of the nearly 702 million acres of Alaska’s public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
This phenomenon – the aurora borealis or northern lights – has inspired awe in poets, artists and songwriters for hundreds of years. Every Northern culture has legends about the once mysterious lights. Some have explained them as magic, dancing spirits, temperamental gods or blood raining from the clouds.
Today, we know that the spectacle is created by solar activity. Occasionally, cool, dark regions known as sunspots form on the sun’s surface at sites of intense magnetic activity. When sunspots flare, a stream of electronically charged particles 100,000 times hotter than boiling water is ejected. This burst of particles snaps off the sun like a rubber band, creating powerful gusts in the solar winds traveling across the galaxy. A few days later, the solar winds may reach the Earth’s upper atmosphere where fast-moving electrons collide with the Earth’s magnetic field, gravitating toward the North and South poles. The result is aurorae – geomagnetic storms that lights up the sky.
The best time to view aurorae in the Northern Hemisphere is typically during early fall and late winter when the Earth’s tilt is toward the sun. As darkness settles upon the land after a brief, sun-saturated summer, visitors flock to public lands hopeful that clear skies and a little luck will give them the chance to experience the magic and mystery of a northern lights display.
For the hardy and adventurous, BLM-managed public lands offer perfect vistas for viewing aurorae.
For instance, skiing out to one of the BLM’s remote public-use cabins in the White Mountains National Recreation Area offers the opportunity to escape light pollution and capture breathtaking photographs. There are also seasonal direct flights to Fairbanks and charter tours out toward BLM’s Steese National Conservation Area that will afford more than a glimpse of the lights over endless rolling hills and tundra.
You can even catch the aurorae in Anchorage, Alaska’s biggest city. The BLM’s Campbell Tract offers outstanding shelter from the bright city lights and is just minutes away from local amenities.
A trip up the Dalton Highway, made famous by the reality TV show “Ice Road Truckers,” provides one of the best chances to see the northern lights in Alaska. Tourism operators provide opportunities for visitors to venture by van or bush plane through the BLM’s Dalton Highway Corridor. Locals from Coldfoot and Wiseman provide a warm bed and/or hearty meals, and even wake-up calls when the aurorae get active. For BLM staff working in this region, the thrill of witnessing a stunning display of lights never grows old. “It’s amazing to return to the cabin after a day of measuring snow depths in temperatures as low as minus 60 degrees and to look out that window and see aurorae dancing in the sky,” says Kelly Egger, an outdoor recreation planner for the Central Yukon Field Office. “I’m lucky to work in a place like this.”
Story by Karen Deatherage, former park ranger and interpretation specialist for the BLM Central Yukon Field Office in Fairbanks, originally published in the Spring 2015 issue of My Public Lands Magazine.
Timelapse by Bob Wick, BLM.
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