Chasing the Northern Lights in Alaska

We hurtled across the tundra in the dark. The old train chugged, rattled, occasionally whined. As the sun came up around 10 a.m., the world faded from black to cobalt to white and every shade between. All was snow; it was just a matter of how much, where, what shape. Black spruce trees draped in white rose up from the ground like crystals of hoarfrost.

“If you walked in that direction,” I heard my father say, “you would die.” I could not see in what direction he was pointing, but it didn’t matter. He was right. In temperatures that hovered around zero, it would take several days to hike to the nearest town. 

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