Readers Digest UK - December 2021

DECEMBER 2021 • 87

half of the sky, brightening until it is

a river of pearl. Céline and I lie back

on a pile of packed snow, watching

the glowing track cross the sky like

a painter’s brush. It changes without

changing; a fraction dissolves and

reappears, slides away, returns. The

river cleaves into two puddles of

ghostly milk. I can’t see it changing,

yet it changes. Soon the two wide

swathes thicken and then burst,

flooding the banks until the entire

sky is filled with vibrating light.

A hundred voices shout from the

darkness all around. Fluttering sheets

of pale light, pinkish folds shifting as

if from a breath, shimmering rays, and

billowing golden clouds, liquid and

shining in all directions. Now, I know.

T

he summer before, a friend

invited me to come along on

a trip organised by the Cloud

Appreciation Society (CAS), of which

I was also a member, to view the

aurora borealis in Yellowknife. I don’t

generally do that kind of thing: travel

in packs, with guides. I’m too cheap

for curated trips, too introverted for

groups, and I prefer to stay close to

the ordinary daily life of a destination.

But viewing the aurora is a peculiar

undertaking, something best done

in very cold places at night, far from

cities, in an environment that doesn’t

reward the solo traveller. I decided

that I would need to go in a group for

this, and if so, this was the group for me.

The capital of the Northwest

Territories sits on the shore of

Great Slave Lake, one of the world’s

deepest and largest lakes. The Dene

people have lived along its shores for

thousands of years; Yellowknife is

named for Indigenous copper knives.

It began as a fur-trading outpost, then

ignited with a gold rush in the 1930s,

and is now a diamond-mining centre

Yellowknife sits on the shore

of Great Slave Lake, one of the

world’s largest, deepest lakes

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