camwyn | "That's as may be," Granny said sharply,

"but what it is, is the phoenix dancin'."

Stayed up last night with an Asian-ancestry woman from Australia, a man from New Zealand, an American in his early twenties, and a very quiet Japanese guy to await the arrival of the aurora borealis. We watched The Princess Bride and had someone go outside every ten or fifteen minutes to check. Ultimately a pair of young Spanish women who were staying at the hostel came in from outside and told us the Lights were starting, so we all pulled on jackets and boots (no shoes allowed in the hostel), and in my case freshly completed fingerless gloves, and piled outside to watch from the second-floor access to the hostel.

At first it was a bit... mmmh. Looked like just a slightly brightish band across part of the northern sky. The kind of thing you think is maybe an ice crystal cloud, albeit very low, you know? I thought perhaps it was something to do with the moon, until I looked around and discovered the moon was just barely starting to rise about 145-160 degrees away. Turned back to the band then and the lot of us argued in very hushed tones over whether that bit behind the tree was getting brighter, or that part by the star getting dimmer, or whether we were all hallucinating, or what...

And then it did get brighter, and the people with cameras started frantically fussing over shutter speeds and ASA numbers. I just smiled a little to myself because I had resolved I wouldn't even try to photograph the aurora. Cameras have a tendency to diminish. What would the point be?

It didn't get as bright as you see in the book photographs, but we got some really nice bright vertical bands. And we did see them move - rippling a little across the sky, glowing brightly in the middle, peeling apart and coming back together - oh, it was fascinating! I don't know how long we watched for, but it kept happening for quite a while. It was a pale silvery colour, perhaps with a little bit of bluish to it, except when it did the splitting - then it was whiter with a tinge of green.

Eventually, for the most part, the lights faded. Several of us, myself included, went inside. I poked my head out once more after that, but it was late and I was coughing (I've had a nasty drip/cough/sneeze going on since last Tuesday). And I had, after all, seen the... no. No, not the phoenix. This is Alaska. We don't have phoenixes here, I don't think. Can't really say it's Raven, either, as I don't remember him being thought responsible... the Eskimo peoples apparently say the lights are the souls of unborn children at play. This is interesting to me, because the Japanese (and possibly other Asians) have a belief that a child conceived under the northern lights will be especially blessed - at least, that's what the people who work in the resorts and hotels and restaurants around here say is the reason why Fairbanks turns into Little Tokyo during the winter months.

Anyway, I've seen the Lights, which is something I really wanted to see. And that's good. I'll buy a postcard or something but I'm not going to try and photograph them if I see them again, either.

Today's activities: visit the LARS for the tour proper, go to Fred Meyer for supplies for Denali, get a scarf pattern for the qiviut I bought for my mother. Probably not in that order - Fred's sells knitting equipment and if I need smaller needles it would be good to know that before I left. It'll give me something to do on the way there. I leave for Denali tomorrow.