Northern lights

The flickering greenish or reddish light that can be seen in the night sky in the northern parts of the world is called the northern lights. The Latin name Aurora Borealis means northern morning light. In the Sami language the word guovssahas is derived from a word that has to do with the morning light.

Most people are fascinated by the northern lights. If you visit the northern parts of Scandinavia the chance is big that you will see them. On average you can see the northern lights in Stockholm one night out of twenty and in Kiruna almost every night. It has to be dark and relatively clear – and then you also need some good luck. The most intense part of the northern lights often goes on for less than ten minutes. Sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish between weak northern lights and a cloud. If it’s the northern lights you can see the stars peeping through. The northern lights are often slightly green and change their form in a different way than a cloud. In Scandinavia the most active northern lights can be seen just before midnight.

Indigenous peoples like the Sami and the First Nations, who have traditionally lived in areas where you can see the northern lights, used to say that you should respect the northern lights and behave well. Many elderly people can tell you that they were taught by their parents to be calm and silent when the northern lights could be seen. The Sami people believed there was a connection between the northern lights and the weather. When the northern lights were intense the weather would get warmer. Other people groups believed it would get colder or that there was a snowstorm coming. Anyway, most of them thought that the flickering northern lights meant change of weather.