Lights Camera Action!

The aurora borealis has fascinated, and often terrified, humans for thousands of years. The people of the north who saw the aurora frequently developed many legends and stories about it, while those who lived further south and rarely saw the aurora thought it was a supernatural omen of war or destruction.

As people began to seek more natural explanations for the aurora, they came up with many theories: reflected firelight from the edge of the world, sunlight reflected from the arctic ice, or maybe reflected by ice crystals high in the sky. It wasn't until the 20th century that people finally began to make headway in the study of the aurora, and there are still many unanswered questions about it.

An Eskimo tale records that the northern lights are spirits playing ball in the sky with a walrus skull. Another legend, calls them the flaming torches carried by departed souls guiding travelers to the afterlife.

The "Northern Lights", at their most dazzling from December to March when nights are longest and the sky darkest, can usually be seen even as far south as Juneau.

Undulating ribbons of light may shimmer in the sky for hours, like glowing, dancing curtains of green, yellow and orange or dark red, or magnificent veils with a full spectrum of colors, and with the altitude of its lower edge 60 to 70 miles above the earth.

Or the aurora may last 10-15 minutes, twisting and turning in patterns called "rayed bands", then whirling into a giant green corona in which rays appear to flare in all directions from a central point, and finally fade away.

The rarest aurora is the red aurora, like the one of February 11, 1958, which is still talked about today.

The Legend Of The Ojibwa
Many of us who live in the Northern areas of the American Continent have had the delightful experience of watching the magnificent display of moving multi-colored, misty lights, as they flash across the night skies.

A number of theories and explanations have been advanced for this natural phenomenon known as the "Aurora Borealis" or "Northern lights", but let us travel in our minds, back through the eons of time and discover how they really came into being. We are in a world that spins in a perfect vertical position upon its axis. The moderate temperature is about the same all over its surface and beautiful vegetation is everywhere.

As we return through time, we witness the great Flood where everything becomes submerged and finally lost. As the waters gradually recede their tremendous weight throws our planet off its balance and it now tilts to one side, thus causing long dark periods in the North and South.

Not quite all is lost however, for in the North lived a simple and God-fearing race of people, known to us now as the "Mongols", whom the Great Manitou (their name for God) had spared from this great deluge.

When they could no longer see the Sun and feel its warmth, fear came upon them and they prayed to the Great Manitou to save them. In his compassion, the Great Spirit decided to take them to the warm and fertile plains of this Continent and he bade them gather together their families and 'what goods they could carry and trek across the barren North to the "New Land".

Because there was no daylight many became lost and perished within the deep crevices caused by the flood waters.

Again they prayed for help and the Great Manitou devised a plan. Covering the Northern cap of the world with great crystals of ice, some as high as mountains, he was able to capture the rays of the hidden sun and reflect them up into the sky, thus providing light for his people to see by. Onward these stalwart people trekked, and became the forerunners of our many Indian tribes.

The great ice prisms split the sun's rays into all the beautiful colors of the spectrum and because of this, people for thousands of years have witnessed this wonderful miracle, the Northern Lights!

Legend Of the Eskimo

Auroras - or Northern Lights - are believed to be the torches held in the hands of Spirits seeking the souls of those who have just died, to lead them over the abyss terminating the edge of the world. A narrow pathway leads across it to the land of brightness and plenty, where disease and pain are no more, and where food of all kinds is already in abundance. To this place none but the dead and the Raven can go. When the Spirits wish to communicate with the people of the Earth, they make a whistling noise, and the Earth people answer only in a whispering tone. The Eskimo say that they are able to call the Aurora and converse with it. They send messages to the dead through these Spirits.

The Mandan

The Mandan of North Dakota explained the northern lights as fires over which the great medicine men and warriors of northern nations simmered their dead enemies in enormous pots. The Menominee Indians of Wisconsin regarded the lights as torches used by great, friendly giants in the north, to spear fish at night.