Spirits in the Sky

Midsummer sunrise in Tromsø, Norway

via wikipedia

Several years ago we travelled up the coast of Norway from Bergen to Tromsø to see the mid-night sun. The journey was partly by train, small plane and the Norwegian Post ship. The boat called in at the Lofoten Islands, where we stayed for a couple of nights. The pleasure of the post boat is that it is an ordinary working ship which visits many of the small outlying communities. It may drop off a piano, pick up a coffin or boxes of food, and of course leave and deliver sacks of mail.
The mid-night sun occurs in the summer months at latitudes north of the Arctic Circle. Given good weather, the sun is visible for a continuous 24 hours. We watched from a mountain top in Tromsø, it was wonderful being surrounded by daylight, seeing the sun skim down to the horizon, and then turn to climb into the sky without vanishing. As the sun travels down to the horizon it creates evening glows in the sky, but as it rides up again, immediately, dawn glows fill the sky, which are reflected in the water below.

It would be lovely to visit the same area and see the spectacular Northern Lights, aurora borealis, which this winter are predicted to be the best for many years.

On clear nights with a combination of the right atmospheric conditions, luminous, multicoloured shapes in the night sky are created. This has been happening ever since the earth had an atmosphere, so tundra trekking dinosaurs would have seen them. 

Many Arctic dwelling peoples, including the Inuit, have attributed spiritual feelings to the phenomenon, deciding that the lights were probably the ghosts of ancestors. The Vikings, given to more colourful explanations thought the ethereal reflections came from the armour of the Valkyrior - the virgin warriors of Norse mythology. The lights are at their most frequent in late autumn and winter/early spring; Between the autumn equinox and spring equinox.