Sometimes, our luck does not turn in the way we hope, or expect, that is something one must grow used to when it comes to the chase of the Aurora Borealis. She can be surprising, and there is never a guarantee whether you will see them or not, no matter what the odds are said to be.

Frances Lake is a yearly venture for us, we spend anywhere from a couple weeks to a month time there in Autumn. It is a very important time of bonding between myself and my children and the land. There are many constants that we have grown comfortable with returning to, Aurora had become one of them.

This year, no such luck was to be had, and a stark reminder of how one should never place the term “constant” on something that comes and goes on its own time. It is however, not the aurora that did not stay consistent, oh she was there, often I would wake at night to see the familiar lights behind the clouds, no it was not the aurora, this year it was the lack of clear nights.

Weather was not very forgiving, there were glimpses of sun in the day, scattered throughout dark and stormy clouds. There were rainbows now and then, and beautiful foggy mornings, but clear skies were sparing at night, and the few nights it did clear, it was as dark as well, night. A billion stars that would soon be shrouded by fog.

I did manage to have one moment, one glimpse I was able to capture. The sun was giving its final bit of glow, and low and behold, a very vibrant band came to be, green flashed through the sky from one side to the other through the incoming cloud cover. It was a very challenging capture as there were so many forms of light to attempt to capture, from the bright sky on the right, to the dark on the right, it was either under, or overexposed, it took a lot of time tweaking settings to be able to capture the majority, and come up with this representation of a transition from dusk, to night. The orange of the last light of the sun, the blues of dusk, a mauve as the sky gradients towards the darkening sky where many stars can be seen, is an unusual scene accompanying the aurora.

In the end, while I was humbled in my confidence of returning with the many captures I normally do, I came back happy with a single shot and small time-lapse of what I did manage to capture and felt just as happy.

Nature is full of so many lessons, and in those lessons humbleness and appreciation are in abundance.

Charun Stone
Naturally Charun

Photographic prints, canvases, and metal prints of Yukon Aurora are available here in my Aurora gallery