Ali Mclean

“Fires over which a tribe of dwarfs, half the length of a canoe paddle and so strong they caught whales with their hands, boiled blubber.”

“Rare, red Auroras”. It sounds like something Michael Palin’s Pontius Pilate might have struggled with in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. However, for our ancestors, red Auroras were nothing to laugh at, for they were almost universally perceived as portents of doom.

In the current situation, while our bucket lists are on hold, we find ourselves with more time than ever to dream about our future travel destinations.

Here at The Aurora Zone, our team has been incredibly lucky over the years to spend a large portion of their time travelling North, researching locations and making friends with the locals, to find the very best places for our Northern Lights Holidays. We have had some amazing adventures along the way, and our memory buckets are overflowing with stories that bring us a sense of joy at these difficult times.

So, while we have plenty of time to reflect,  we thought we would bring you some of our favourite memories, and 'where we would be if we could be anywhere in the world right now'.

First up…

Founder and Managing Director  - Ali McLean

If you’ve been following our blogs, you’ll know that we’ve been banging on about Coronal Holes and Equinox Cracks for months now, hopefully with good reason.

For the last three months, Aurora hunters have been at a loose end while the 24-hour daylight of the Midnight Sun renders the Northern Lights invisible. Last night, the wait ended as the first Aurora of the 2019/20 season graced the skies of North East Finland.

We’ve touted March as a great time to hunt for the Northern Lights until we are blue in the face. This is because there is very good scientific reasoning to support our assertion that March is the best of the winter months for witnessing the Aurora Borealis.

Quite some time ago, we wrote an article debunking fears that the Northern Lights are set to disappear as the Sun approaches a period of reduced activity known as Solar Minimum. The article highlighted that yes, solar activity is likely to reduce but, happily, the incidences of Coronal Holes is expected to increase.

Aurora hunting has become a fine art and there are now many, many different ways of chasing down Mother Nature’s mesmerising light show. From snowmobile safaris to dog sledding and snowshoeing, the secret is to find a vantage point as far removed from any light pollution as possible.

All of these activities are fabulously fun and entertaining but, in the heart of an Arctic winter, they can get pretty chilly even when you are wearing the thermal clothing we provide on our trips.

We are blue in the face from telling anybody who will listen that autumn is an excellent time to search for the Aurora Borealis. Scientific research and findings from various esteemed Solar Physicists repeatedly point to increased geomagnetic activity (and hence, Auroral displays) in the weeks around the autumn and spring equinoxes.

The big question therefore, is; has this new aurora hunting season started well?

Timo Halonen and his wife Anne run Hotel Korpikartano an idyllic hotel in the breath-taking location of Menesjärvi in Finnish Lapland. Timo has a passion for photography and loves being out with his camera. We caught up with him after another fantastic Northern Lights season to talk about his love for photography and the magical Northern Lights.

Another Aurora hunting season is drawing to a close in Northern Scandinavia. The Northern Lights will still be visible well into April but, during the 24-hour daylight of summer’s Midnight Sun, all an Aurora hunter can do is catch up on lost sleep and long for the darker nights of autumn.