Expecting yet another sea of dark skies, I unzipped my tent door-but this time, the scene looked different. My heart rate quickened. Wait, is that a green glow?
It was May 2021. My husband, Frank, and I were camped on the north shore of Isle Royale National Park, in the middle of Lake Superior. We’d taken a hellacious four-hour detour from our intended route up and over the rock-strewn island’s spine to get here. It was a gamble. Catching the northern lights in the lower 48 states is tricky: it requires near-perfect conditions, an unobstructed view to the north, minimal clouds, and an active aurora.
An avid northern-lights chaser-I have now hunted them (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Arctic Circle-I had already been nerding out on solar activity for three years when we visited Isle Royale. Yet with no cell service to monitor my northern-lights apps, I didn’t know whether we might get skunked … or see something. Read more…
