The 1951 Danish comic ‘Rasmus Klumb at the North Pole’ explains how the Northern light is created: a seal simply puts snow into a machine, turns a machine handle to grind it into light and blows into the machine so that the Northern light exits the machine and enters the sky. It might not be entirely scientifically correct but the thought of strange lights dancing in the sky intrigued me greatly when I read the book at the age of six.
This was the twelfth comic of the legendary Rasmus Klump series (also called ‘Barnaby Bear’ in English and translated to ‘Pol, Pel en Pingo’ in Dutch) and I had become a bit of a collector of the comics. When the series stopped I had every comic of the friendly bear with his cute friends Pelle the pelican and Pingo the penguin. Still today at the age of 51, the collection is on my bookshelf, waiting for my kids to pick them up one day and start reading about adventures around the world.
As a grownup I feel privileged to have visited the arctic region on several occasions. Yet never did I really see the Northern light, even when flying to the Arctic with the sole objective of seeing it. Last week though…I finally saw it.
I was visiting a Finnish ski resort called Luosto with my family. It is a small resort about one-and-a-half hour drive above the arctic circle. Snow is pretty much guaranteed in winter despite the maximum elevation of 500m, yet it was a quiet resort where you can ski while avoiding the masses in the alps or enjoy a camp fire and relax while watching your kids sleigh down on the slope next to you, and do all kinds of other activities.
After dinner we would all go out to a nearby lake to avoid the street lights, and watch the sky despite the freezing temperatures. Already on the first evening it was success: we could see some bright stripes appearing in the sky. At some point one stripe of light even curled a bit with movements in the sky. 45 years after reading Barnaby’s adventures, I finally saw the Northern light. However it was not as spectacular as in the comic.
The next night we set off again, hoping to see more. There was more, but less bright and after a long wait we gave up and headed back to the hotel.
It seemed that a seal at the North Pole felt for me, as just before entering the hotel, he must have given the Northern light machine’s handle a great stir. Suddenly the whole sky light up, showing great movement everywhere. Light waves turned from woven stripes to circles and into stripes again. I managed to find a spot shadowed from the street lights and got a great view. As I looked up, I remembered my childhood heroes Pol/Rasmus, Pelle and Pingo.
One has to be very lucky to see the Northern light. I know that like me, many people frequently travel north in search of it, often without success. My only advise is to keep trying. One day you will succeed. When you do, think of this little seal out there in the North Pole, turning the handle and blowing hard into the machine to give you this nice show, and be grateful as I was.
Ciao!
Robin
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