Our Travel Journal: Havila Castor: Midnight Dusk/Dawn: Ice Hotel, Kirkenes

To see the Northern Lights, three elements must exist. 1) The sun must be pelting the earth with electrons torn from some of its hydrogen and helium atoms. 2) It must be reasonably dark because a bright sky will out shine the Aurora Borealis. 3) And since the Northern lights start about 80 miles above the surface of the earth the skies must be clear, otherwise the clouds block them out.

Last night was the first totally clear night that we have had since embarkation. I was excited because we are just barely outside the time period that the Northern Lights are typically seen. I thought that there might be the off chance that I would see this grand theatre of the sky. We are very far north and that sounded like a good thing for finding the Northern Lights. Turns out we were too far north. We are where at this time of the year it goes from dusk to dawn with no night in the middle. So every time I got up to look for the Northern Lights the sky was just too light for them to show. Had I not been set on seeing the "Lights", I think that I would have been thrilled to have seen the "almost" midnight sun. Sandy tells me to relax and enjoy the moment, and I am, but I really want to see those Lights!

Dusk/Dawn at 2:32AM

We docked at Kirkenes. While we have been and will yet to be further east than Kirkenes, this is the easternmost town that we will dock in. Norway wraps around the northwestern corner of Europe and over the top of Sweden and Finland, ultimately forming a border with Russia. Kirkenes is four miles from the Russian Border.

Here, just outside of Kirkenes, Sandy and I visited the Snow Hotel. This is a operating hotel that has about a dozen sleeping rooms in a giant Igloo. It also has a number of comfortable cabins with north facing glass walls for people coming in the winter in hopes of viewing the Northern Lights. I told Sandy that this would be a good place to come and stay on a dedicated mission to see the Northern Lights. I assured her that it was the cabins that interested me, but she's convinced that I want to get her to spend the night in one of the frozen rooms in the igloo itself, and she's made it clear that that is not going to happen. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to need another plan if the Northern Lights are going to illuminate the skies for me. The hotel also had several reindeer out front and a kennel full of sled dogs for the winter visitors.