My night at Camp Tamok didn’t start out as a very promising one for the northern lights. It had been snowing heavily in Tromsø, where we had boarded a bus for a 1h15m bus ride out into the Lyngen Alps. That snow followed us south and continued to fall all through the night-time dogsledding trip I went on (which was a fantastic experience even without the skies lighting up with green above us).
Halfway through our trip, we stopped and our guide told us to turn off our headlamps. The skies immediately transformed; suddenly, I was seeing stars that I hadn’t noticed only minutes before. Their light sparkled everywhere in the sky, and I was so happy to see them that I didn’t even mind that they weren’t accompanied by the northern lights.
After our sledding trip, as we were walking into a Sami lavvu to have a hot meal, I looked up to the sky and said, “Is that what I think it is?!” Sure enough, before our eyes it began to morph, expanding to take up more of the sky above the mountains before turning a bright enough green that there was no doubt as to what it could be. I stood there open-mouthed, excited that I was finally seeing the northern lights after 8 nights (across 2 trips) of patiently scanning the skies. It was such a moving experience that I nearly missed out on getting a photo of it!
I went to Camp Tamok courtesy of Lyngsfjord Adventure. All opinions stated here are my own.