Finally Experienced the Magic of Northern Lights!

I’m getting used to walking back from the gym in the dark. I’m getting used to layering up again as well. I was wearing shorts just last week, and tonight, I had a jacket on. The “Juliette is cold” season has started. Even though the leaves are still green and still mostly attached to trees, the temperatures are dropping fast, and the days are getting much shorter.

And so I was walking home from the gym tonight around 7:30 p.m. when I noticed lovely pink clouds in the midnight-blue sky. Two girls were taking pictures just behind the supermarket.

“Lovely sunset, isn’t it?” I said, walking by.

“I think these are northern lights,” one of them said. “We’re gonna go see them at the beach.”

Northern lights? In Ottawa?

Northern lights are one of these things Canada is famous for, but this unique natural phenomenon is usually best watched at far-northern latitudes. Basically, you have to find your way to Yukon and Nunavut for the chance to see energized particles from the sun slam into Earth’s upper atmosphere—and the amazing psychedelic show the whole thing makes.

I’ve seen pictures of northern lights. I translated tons of travel articles about the elusive aurora borealis. But I’ve never seen northern lights because when I travel, I go south, not north.

I kept on walking, paying attention to the sky. Yeah, this wasn’t sunset. Sunset was over. This was something else.

“Are you home?” I texted my neighbour who happens to be a friend, or maybe it’s the other way around. Anyway, she is my reference for all things Canadian. “Maybe northern lights.”

“Okay.”

I met her outside her house with her kids a few minutes later.

“I read you could see them in Ontario tonight. Definitely auroras.”

I ran inside our place and called Mark and Feng.

“Let’s go to the beach to see them.”

And so Mark and I jumped in her car with her two kids, and we drove to Britannia Beach, the closest place without light pollution.

It was pitch-dark and we weren’t the only ones chasing the rare aurora borealis.

“Kids! Stick around! Otherwise, I’m gonna have to call the police!”

“Is this trick still working?” I laughed.

“No, seriously, we’re gonna have to call the police if we lose them.”

“Oh yeah, right…”

I gave Mark my phone (he took the pictures below) and we stood there, a couple of metres from the water, just below the psychedelic show playing above our heads.

I know, the pictures look lame, and it’s not Mark’s fault—he did his best with my very old and very uncool phone.

But trust me, it was amazing. The lights were like claws tearing the sky apart, and the next minute, they were ribbons dancing in the dark before turning into rainbows. They were pink and dimmed, green and bright, then bright pink and yellow and more.

We stayed there for a while, mesmerized. Then we drove home because I was cold and even Mark couldn’t feel his hand.

I’ve seen northern lights for the first time after 20 years in Canada.

And I’ve just saved myself a trip to Nunavut, a fascinating place surely, but way too cold for me…