Earlier this week I was up early (5:45am or so) and I was able to watch the most amazing aurora borealis event I’d ever had the chance to witness. In person, they largely looked like grey-green wispy clouds with the occasional hint of purple or blue, but the colours really came out in the photos. I managed to take a few really decent photos with my phone on night mode, either with me bracing my arm against a tree or a picnic table for stability, or with a 5-second delay and then placed flat on a picnic table to be completely stable.
This display of course got my mind thinking about historical accounts of aurorae. I popped over to Peel’s Prairie Provinces, which has a large selection of entirely digitized, full text searchable, small town newspapers from what are now Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, to see how people described encountering the aurora borealis generations ago. Apparently, the feeling of people saying “oh my gosh it was amazing, let me describe it in detail” to those who slept right through amazing light shows is a traditional response.
AURORAL DISPLAY
The Calgary Weekly Herald, September 21, 1883. Archived on Peel’s Prairie Provinces.
The gorgeous display on Saturday evening of the beautiful aurora borealis seen in this district, is one which, though not often witnessed, will never be forgotten by the happy beholder. The electric storm (for such it is known by many) began about ten o’clock, and it seemed to centre in our Zenith, and then expand and radiate out from this centre to all the points of the compass, in ever changing shades and forms. There were displayed in the most beautiful and grotesque manner all the colours and shades of the rainbow. It was really such a profusion and richness of beauty and colouring which no wealth could purchase and no poet adequately describe, so in our humility, we will leave it to our considerate readers to imagine all the attractiveness of the scene which our poor pen has left untold.
The Aurora
The Brandon Daily Mail, September 17, 1883. Archived on Peel’s Prairie Provinces.
It is very seldom that the Aurora, or Northern Lights, look more splendid than they did yesterday evening just after darkness had set in. The sight was a magnificent one, the lights shooting far to the south of the zenith(?), and being all colors from a deep rose to a pure white. They shifted and changed their position constantly, at times only illuminating a portion of the heavens, at others spreading all over it. The sight was witnessed by numbers of our citizens, and the general opinion seems to have been that it is rarely – even in this district where the sight is not an uncommon one – the lights show out as magnificently as they did last night.
SPLENDID NORTHERN LIGHTS
Qu’Appelle Progress, November 19, 1891. Archived on Peel’s Prairie Provinces.
Some Recent Displays of Aurora Borealis in the Far Northwest
The northern lights have been uncommonly fine and bright at Edmonton, N.W.T., for some weeks and the wise ones say that we shall have a long, sharp winter. Others hold that the aurora dances only when a cold spell is breaking up in the north and that we may expect mild weather so long as they are active. But whether the prophets say warm or cold, the people are sawing wood just the same and are not taking any chances. Last winter the mercury dropped to 40o below zero and the Edmontonians don’t propose to be left out in the cold in consequence of any northern lights.
The other night there was a remarkable outburst of polar lights that intensified until at 2 o’clock next morning, more than half of the sky was filled with them. A peculiarity of this display was that the arch was lifted so high and tilted, on our side of the earth, so far southward that it was seen not to be an arch but an immense circle, girdling the northern hemisphere, with its axis somewhere along the Mackenzie. In other words, the electrical core or magnetic pole, seemed to have shifted down until it was comparatively near us. . . . After keeping its place in mid-heaven for a time the band broke into clouds and receded toward the north.
A few nights ago an uncommonly brilliant display occurred, the celestial fireworks being visible during sunset. They lasted through the night and on the following evening were still there, showing themselves before the west was dark. Where the rays bunched themselves together the light was clearly intensified, and the still forest stood out against it in black silhouette. These rays frequently shot to the zenith and as they rolled together, formed beams of throbbing green light like that of the early gloaming in point of luminosity. It suggested indeed that the spear of Odin and the clubs of the frost giants were brandished above the domes of Walhalla in despair at the coming of Goetterdaemmerung; and, as if the fires of mundane destruction were alight already, there was a blood red glow at the northern horizon, a glare(?) as if the earth’s crust had been lifted out, and the boiling lava was surging out. For a time during the display portions of a double arch were seen, two segments of pale fire pushing out beneath the main arch, and afterward being absorbed by it. Frequently the lights assumed the form of drapery, a curtain thousands of miles long, and hundreds of miles high, spangled with stars, its green and blue and golden fringes flapping against the earth as it billowed(?) and tossed and rolled from side to side in the strain of gales blowing out of space, a loosened sail of the earth ship bounding – whither?
Beautiful Display of Aurora Borealis
Redcliff Review, August 9, 1917. Archived on Peel’s Prairie Provinces.
The heavens were illuminated last night with the most beautiful display of the aurora borealis it has ever been our experience to witness. About 9.30 in the northwestern sky appeared to mirror an immense fire and the apparent reflection cast a rich red hue over the heavens. This changed into the old fashioned northern lights with shooting rays from west to east. For a time the sky appeared to have cleared, but it was at 11.30 that the display reached its prettiest. At that time the whole sky was enveloped in a sea of loveliness which beggars description. From every corner of the horizon it was covered with a curtain that would make Joseph’s coat fade into insignificance. These flimsy curtain-like rays appeared to be gathered up in the centre immediately overhead and held by a large rosette of flaming red. From the centre the red faded into a soft cerise which, mingled with all the colors of the rainbow, created a setting which stood out as if defying the most skilled artist to paint anything half so beautiful.
The effect was wonderful and those who did not see it missed a rare sight.
NORTHERN LIGHTS FINEST SEEN HERE
The Edmonton Bulletin, March 11, 1918. Archived on Peel’s Prairie Provinces.
Bishop Newnham Says Aurora Display Brightest Since 1870 in West
The northern lights witnessed in Edmonton last Thursday evening played havoc with the telegraphic wires all over Canada and resulted in big delay[s] in telegraphic business according to city telegraphic men.
The display was one of the finest ever witnessed in the west. Bishop Newnham of Prince Albert, who is a great student of this phenomenon, says it was the most striking that he has ever seen.
In a statement to the Canadian Press he says:
‘The only time I have seen anything like it was in 1870, when, during the Franco-Prussian war, Paris was besieged by the Germans. I [saw] that from London, England, and many people were under the impression that Paris was being burned.’
Bishop Newnham says that the aurora Thursday night was of a bright red color similar to the reflection of a gigantic fire. The news dispatches indicated that the aurora was visible in England and probably aided a German aerial raid.
History Research Shenanigans 