The sun emits a stream of gas and electrically charged particles known as the solar wind which fans out across our solar system.  After a few days, some of the winds encounter the Earth’s magnetic field, which draws the particles down around the north and south magnetic poles.  As they collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, light is produced.  That’s an aurora. In the northern hemisphere, the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights.

About half way through the sun’s eleven year Solar Cycle, a Solar Maximum occurs.  Solar flares and giant solar storms known as coronal mass ejections flow out, punching ‘holes’ in the solar wind and producing more, and more dramatic, auroras over the next year or so.

2024/25 marked a Solar Maximum, so 2025/26 is the best the auroras will be until the next Solar Maximum in another ten years.

Autumn and spring are the most active seasons as the earth’s orientation toward the sun maximises the probability of solar flares interacting with Earth’s magnetic field.  In the northern hemisphere, that’s November to March.

Statistically, the equinoxes, around 21 March and 21 September, are the best dates, when geomagnetic aurora storms are twice as likely to occur.

The Northern Lights have been on our “some day” radar for years but we usually travel to Europe in the summer.  When we found out that March 2026, particularly around the equinox on 21 March, might be the best the Northern Lights will be for the next decade, we made a last minute decision that “some day” should be now.

Of course it also depends on the weather.  Cloud is the enemy of those chasing the lights.  The whole of March should be prime viewing time, but as we mentioned in our last post, when we arrived in Lapland on 18 March, the lights hadn’t been seen for two weeks due to heavy cloud.

It wasn’t looking promising that day, either.   Although the cloud did produce a great sunset.

On equinox night we were out leading reindeer through the forest.  The sky was clear but no auroras.

And when we went snowmobiling, once again the cloud hid any auroras but produced a dazzling sunset.

On the night we went ice floating, Julie captured some auroras appearing as the cloud lifted.  In the beginning they looked more like tornadoes on the horizon on the other side of the frozen lake.

In Finnish, the name for the Northern Lights is ‘revontulet’, which translates as ‘fox fires’.  According to ancient myth, the lights were caused by an Arctic fox dashing across the winter landscape to escape hunters.  As he ran, his swishing tail swept snowflakes up into the sky, catching the moonlight and creating the sparkling lights.  This also explains why the lights are only visible in winter, as there is no snow in the summer.

As the clouds lifted, the swirling was revealed.

The Sami have a very different view.  According to traditional belief, the lights are the energies of the souls of the dead and are to be feared.  When the lights are active, people should be quiet and solemn because showing disrespect invites bad fortune, sickness and even death.  Waving or whistling at the lights is particularly dangerous because it could attract their attention and the lights might swoop down and carry you into the sky.

So strong were these beliefs that Sami would stay indoors when the lights were active.

But that would mean missing a most unique and amazing spectacle.  On the night we went snowshoeing, the sky was completely clear and we saw a gobsmacking display.  We should say at this point – most of those incredibly sharp photos you see of the auroras are long exposure shots.  We saw colours as vivid as those classic photos, but when you are using iPhones as old as ours, night mode maximum exposure is 3 seconds.  That’s not long enough for sharp pictures, but still good enough to record some of the beauties we saw.

We were deep in the woods in Yllas National Park when we stopped at a park hut.  While our guide made a fire inside, we took off our snowshoes, lay in the snow and watched the auroras directly above.  Apparently for officianados, seeing them overhead is the ‘holy grail’.  They were sensational.  Utter magic.