Wandering Amylessly: The luck of the Irish lights up the green Alaska sky

By Wyo4News feature writer Amy Larsen
All photos submitted by Amy Larsen except for the cover photo (Shutterstock)

March 20, 2022 — “The most important thing to remember when you are out shooting the Aurora is to put your camera down and take pictures with your soul.” That was the last piece of advice I got from the professional photographer I was taking a lesson from before I went up to Bettles, Alaska.

I understood what he meant, take a moment to just be in the moment, but at that point, I had been out three crystal clear nights in a row, until 3 in the morning, with not one single green band in the sky. To say I was starting to feel some defeat is an understatement; after all that was strike three, and I was feeling out!

Then to have a professional photographer, who I had paid for a workshop to teach me to capture the lights, to tell me to put my camera down, after he had told me which lens to purchase, well my thoughts were all over the place. I was trying to stay positive, but let’s be real, we all know how excited I was for this trip, and even though I had told myself it might not happen, the hopefulness in me was sure I would have 14 nights of incredible lights.

Well, needless to say, the luck of the Irish was finally on my side in the early morning hours of St. Patrick’s Day, my first night in Bettles, as Mother Nature put on her green and delighted us for over an hour. Because I was so far north, the lights went from east to west over the top of us. Honestly, words can not describe it, nor can pictures really capture it. When they say the lights dance, they literally dance! It is the greatest light show one will ever see. I am still in awe of it, extremely tired, but actually at a loss for an adequate description, which, as you all know, doesn’t happen often.

 At one point, as the lights were out, I had my iPhone pointed east and my DSLR camera pointed west. I wanted and needed to capture everything. At one point, I realized every time I looked up, the lights were in a different formation, yet I never saw them move! A literal “click” in my mind took place. I was spending the whole show watching through my LCD screen instead of taking it all in. I was more worried about the crop of the photo, the foreground, and the timing than I was aware of what was happening around me, and what was happening around me was an incredible natural phenomenon I have waited my whole life to see.

I put my camera down and just looked up in awe, and as I did, a shooting star shot through the Aurora. Alright, universe, I got the message! I took a few more pictures off and on, but once the giant ribbon appeared in the sky with the greens, reds, and whites and just danced across the sky, I stopped and just let it penetrate the lens of my soul, a beautiful reminder that it is okay not to share everything. Somethings you just have to be there for. It was the most awe-inspiring, majestic moment I have had in a really long time! 

As I sat in my room after the lights faded, I kept reflecting on the advice I had been given and how much more I needed to apply that to so many other aspects of my life. I made the conscious decision not to look through the pictures in my camera until the morning and sit with what I experienced. 

I tend to run through life on fast-forward, snapping a million pictures, not that it is a bad thing as I love sharing them and my experience, but I am just now realizing how much it is limiting my view narrows my focus. I worry more about what to crop out of the frame instead of seeing what all there is to include. In trying to capture life in an instant, I often miss out on life happening around me. See, that’s what happens when you start taking pictures with your soul; it turns into a panorama of where you are in life.

As I am writing this column this week, I am still 35 miles north of the Arctic Circle. I just got off a dog sled ride on the Koyukuk River with a four-time Iditarod musher. WiFi is sketchy, and I can barely get a text out.

The warming hours are spent gathered with strangers that are now friends as we have all shared a moment that will never be repeated, one we will never be able to describe. Phones are down, and people are seeing the whole picture. So while I can not share the entirety of my northern lights experience with you all, I can share the most important thing I took from it. Be okay just participating in what life has presented to you. It is okay to just sit “in the moment” and take those pictures with your soul. In fact, I highly encourage it.