Published: AFAR

Location: Scandinavia, Alaska

A few years ago, on a late-August evening at the tail end of a summer I’d spent sailing under the midnight sun along the spectacular Norwegian coast, something surprising happened. Seemingly out of nowhere, the Northern Lights erupted across the first dark sky I’d seen in months.

I blinked to be sure what I was seeing was real—the curtain of shimmering green light that had suddenly whipped itself into a Tinkerbell trail across the sky—then summoned everyone up on deck. Even our Norwegian travel companions couldn’t believe their eyes.

We weren’t surprised so much by the sight of the aurora—the skies above the northern part of the country, where we were, are famous for the phenomenon. We were shocked that it was happening while we were all still in T-shirts, enjoying the last official days of summer.