It's dark and cold. It's Sept 2019, 2 am and I am barely awake. I have been sitting on the porch of my cabin, about 20 miles from the city center of Fairbanks. There are no city lights or any lights, except the soft red light from my lamp. My Aurora app tells me the light show is happening right now above Fairbanks, AK but I cannot see it. I have a clear view of the open sky that has had a thick cover of clouds. As I set down my cup of hot chocolate and breathe out visibly into the cold air, I notice my desperation. After all that I have screwed up this year and all that I had to let go of, I need a win, I need to see the aurora. That need for a good memory for the year had prompted me to book a flight last minute and make a trip out here. And now here I am, playing the waiting game. Yet again. Why is everything worth having packaged into a catch-22? The Aurora Borealis is only visible in the winter and that's when its often so cloudy that you can't see it.
Eventually, I give up. I grab my purse, throw in some red bulls in there along with some gloves, and my GPS. I lock up the cabin and step outside into my car. I am not chasing the aurora any more, I am chasing the section of the sky not covered with clouds. Randomly, I decide to explore north towards Dayton Highway. About an hour of driving at Alaskan scale, I'm pumped up on Red Bull. It's hard to see the sky and drive at the same time so I pull over many times. My determination to see the light show is now sprinkled with excitement when I start seeing highway signs for the North Pole and the Arctic Circle. I was within reach of the places I had only seen on TV but I couldn't get to them. Dayton Highway is not maintained so I cannot take my rental car beyond a certain point. I turn around and start heading back, still waiting for a break in the clouds so I can catch a glimpse of the dancing lights above.
I pull over into a turnout and see a truck ahead of me. It's equipped with guard rails, flood lights and bunch of extra tires. It belongs to Jeff, an Aurora-chaser, as I'd find out soon. And he is setting up his tripod to get ready to photograph. I feel hopeful despite my faltering faith in being able to see the aurora because his faith is strong. He helps me setup my phone to be able to capture pictures of the night sky as we wait. Before long, the clouds finally part their curtains. It's probably 4 am, but for me the show has just begun. I watch in awe at a mere green streak of light. It's fixed, not moving but unmistakable.
While standing, shooting and watching the lights, Jeff informs me that I am putting myself at great risk by driving alone at this time in the night. "Is it the bears?", I ask innocently, as I always associated Alaska with Grizzly bears. "The moose, silly!", he laughs as he explained to me that it is the moose all Alaskans are scared of, not the bears. The 6 foot tall horse like counterpart of the deer is actually running freely through the parts of Alaskan highways that cut through forests and if a car runs into them, there will be serious damage to the car in the best case and probably even death of everyone involved in the worst case. Without network coverage, any encounter with wildlife could turn into staying out in the cold all night and more exposure to wildlife. At some point, I notice that he is mocking me, and all tourists who believe that Alaska was just another place to visit. The clouds cover us again and the show is over. He suggests I either follow his big moose-safe truck closely if I wish to continue exploring or just take my sorry-ass rental car get back to my cabin as soon as possible. I don't have enough gas to continue my chase, so I turn back to my cabin. I had driven out over an hour now and the drive back is long, but I am on high alert for any sign of moose and praying for safe drive back.
It's 5 am now, I am back at the cabin. The clouds are gone and the sky is fully lit up with the northern lights. The show is in full swing and act 2 is even better. I make a hot cup of coffee and bundle up to take more pictures. I'm tired yet the coffee and the excitement from getting the front row seats to the Aurora Borealis keeps me going. The lights change direction, they snake up north sometimes and sometimes they form a large rainbow that disappears south. They are mostly bright green but you can see streaks of purple and white in the mix, and it's surreal. I stay up another 30 min or so despite the dropping temperature, taking pictures from all angles. My weariness has finally caught up with me now and I am ready to call it a night. A crazy and wonderful night.
As I get warm and cozy in my cabin bed, I think to how silly I must have been to have ever doubted it. The owner of the AirBnB where I rented the cabin told me that the clouds have to clear at some point. Maybe I should have just waited it out, at the cabin instead of risking my life driving in the Alaskan terrain. But what if I hadn't and the clouds had never cleared? Waiting games are like bargaining to purchase a hand-carved wooden elephant from a street vendor in Mumbai, India. You never know if you caved in too soon or did just good. This game challenges your faith and makes you come face to face with the depths of your despair. Being attached to a specific outcome, makes you vulnerable. But when it's all said and done, the only question I ask myself is "Was it worth it? "