Aurora Borealis
Monday-Wednesday 10-12 November, 2025
An incredible display of Aurora Borealis.
First Night
The aurora are most likely to be visible during the darkest hours of the night, between 22:00 and 02:00. The grand plan, therefore, was to work from about 10:00 to about 15:00, sleep for a few hours, go out to try to see the aurora, then sleep for a few more hours, and get up for work again. Difficult, but possible.
My advisors as Salmon Berry Tours recommended spending our first night trying to see the aurora at the Aurora Borealis Lodge on a hill on the outskirts of Fairbanks. For $40 each, we could observe the aurora at intervals while warming up inside the lodge, enjoying hot cocoa with a knowledgeable guide.
On our way up the steep, curving road to the lodge, I was puzzled by the sight of a strange fog in the sky over Bofuri. It looked like fingers above us. I did not know yet that I had had a glimpse of the aurora.
Entry to the warm and comfortable Aurora Borealis Lodge. Photo by Eric.
We were greeted by Mok, who has been operating aurora tours for over 30 years. Mok showed us around the lounge, where the lighting is kept dim for viewing the aurora through the large north-facing windows. He showed us where to find the cookies and cocoa. He pointed us to some apps we could use to anticipate greater magnetic activity, and a nearby webcam that would show where in the sky the aurora were strongest. He took us out on the deck, pointing out the aurora in the sky.
We were absolutely enthralled by the views of beautiful green aurora to the sky in the north.
We watched the aurora change and spread across the sky.
We excitedly congratulated ourselves on our success. We had seen the aurora!
Mok told us that the a magnetic storm was approaching the Earth, and that the aurora were supposed to be more intense the next night. The lodge had been so comfortable that we signed up to spend a second night watching the aurora with him.
Second Night
We slept for a few hours and rose for work again, around the time the sun was rising outside the window. After a few hours of work, we were preparing to have dinner and go to sleep when we got a message from Mok. The aurora were going to be early that night, and we didn't have to wait until 22:00 to come to the lodge. We should come at 19:30.
That was great! We could do all of our sleeping in one long block!
There was a geocache at an overlook very close to the lodge. Eric particularly wanted to find this one because the listing indicated that, when it was placed, it had had one of the geocoins commemorating Motogrrl, otherwise known as Leigh Ann Hussey, an old friend lost in a motorcycle accident in 2006.
Eric took my picture standing in the snow looking for the cache.
Eric digging in the snow for the cache.
As we searched for the cache, our app data started to indicate in influx of magnetic particles in the atmosphere. The numbers in red indicate greater magnetic activity. Photo by Eric.
See the sudden change in magnetic activity here. Photo by Eric.
I was seeing a pink glow in the sky, and feeling as if we were missing a great moment. I ran back up the hill in the snow to the lot where Bofuri was parked, crying, "I want my tripod!"
The storm was hitting the atmosphere strongly. I took these pictures from the overlook partking lot.
We took advantage of a bit of a lull in the storm to jump into Bofuri and hurry to the lodge. Unfortunately, though, as we discovered later, Eric had lost a hat that Mark Irons, another different, deceased friend, had made for him while searching unsuccessfully for the cache.
While the aurora are usually more visible to the north in the Northern Hemisphere, this storm had spread widely to the south. Aurora were seen from as far south as Florida that night. I saw pictures of aurora over the San Francisco Bay.
When the aurora spread so far south, sometimes they are invisible from Fairbanks. But we were lucky, we could see them well.
I couldn't go into the lodge to warm up at first, because the views south of the lodge were so incredible.
The aurora do not appear as intensely to the eye as they do to the camera. In looking at this scene, I saw the bands of light on the outer edges, to the far left and right, arcing up toward the center. They did not have a lot of color in them. I could see more color in the center directly in front of me, but nothing as intense as what the camera captured.
See how the shapes of the light change.
I loved seeing the aurora directly overhead.
It was amazing to see them seemingly raining down from the sky.
In these patterns up high in the sky, it looks as if the aurora are spreading out from a point. But we learned later, at the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, that the particles are actually converging on a point rather than diverging from it.
As the film at the Museum of the North explained, three elements combine to form the aurora: the Earth's magnetic field acts as a brush that spreads the particles from the sun like paint across the canvas of the Earth's atmosphere.
Eventually there was enough of a lull that I could go into the lodge for some cocoa. But soon, more bright aurora began to emerge to the north.
These aurora appeared more green than pink. The green aurora are by far the most common, and are formed by the interaction of solar particles with oxygen relatively low in the Earth's atmosphere. The pink aurora are created by the interaction of solar particles with oxygen higher in the atmosphere.
A greater mix of pinks and greens appeared high over our heads.
Views to the north.
I include a lot of pictures here because conditions were just incredible. We were there for several hours, and these are just a few of the pictures I took.
You can stay overnight at the Aurora Borealis Lodge, although the internet service was not good enough for working. Here are the aurora over the building with the overnight lodging.
Well practiced at photographing guests, Mok used one phone to light us as he took our picture with the aurora.
Conditions for the next night were very promising as well, and the aurora might be visible even earlier. We considered going to observe the aurora over a lake, especially as I was working with my women artists' group on a reflections task. But the lure of Mok's nice warm lodge was just too great, and we decided to spend another night at his place.
Third Night
Around the time we were finishing up work on Wednesday, Mok told us that the aurora were coming very early, and that we should come up at 18:00. He said he had never done an aurora tour so early before.
The third night was as intense as the second.
I experimented with a faster shutter speed.
I was so fascinated by the unusual high-in-the-sky views.
We went back and forth for hours, from one side of the lodge to the other, wherever the aurora were brightest, periodically warming up inside.
The colors made swirling patterns in the sky above us.
Views to the north.
Looking high up in the sky.
Swirls in the sky.
Lights converging toward the pole.
The purples are formed by nitrogen in the atmosphere.
A swirl of aurora over the viewing lodge. You can see the dim lighting.
As the night wore on, most of the aurora were on the north side of the lodge.
After watching the aurora for three nights straight, we were able to notice details, and we started to see the dancing movements. If you look toward the bottom right portion of the swirl of aurora in this video, you may be able to see the magic.
But as I noted in the video, it was 22:00, and Mok schedules aurora viewing in four-hour shifts. So our time at the lodge was over, and we needed to go back to our lodging, full of excitement and satisfaction.
On to Denali, the Great One.