Finland: in search of the northern lights

Andy Pietrasik has spent years trying to see the northern lights ? and always without success. But this time he was going with an aurora hunter?When it comes to the northern lights I am a hex, a jinx, a Jonah. I have been inside the Arctic Circle on several occasions ? in northern Sweden, Norway and Canada ? and have stood in nature's great freezer waiting for the door to be opened and the lights to come on. I have been glued to the spot, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere, my head flung back, eyes locked on the polar darkness in anticipation, but I have never witnessed even a flicker of the auroral luminescence.This time, I am leaving nothing to chance. I have read up on the subject. Nasa scientists predict we are about to experience the most intense period of solar activity ? the solar maximum ? since 1958, and the northern lights will be at their most dazzling this winter. But there are, of course, no guarantees. According to Lucy Jago's book on Danish scientist Kristian Birkeland, the man who dedicated his life to explaining the phenomena at the turn of the 20th century, auroras "appeared infrequently and a whole week could pass without a sighting".I have just four days in Lapland, the northernmost region of Finland, and to maximise my chances of seeing these illusive streaks of light, I have booked a night in a glass igloo and another in a wilderness lodge on the edge of Finland's largest national park, far away from any urban skyglow. But most importantly, for two nights I have enlisted the services of an aurora hunter, whose mission is to chase down the northern lights for his clients.Andy Keen is a creature of the night, a man who ghosts through the winter landscape, driving relentlessly in search of the darkest places and the clearest skies. He is methodical in his approach, his movements based on updates and alerts from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute on the Aurora Buddy app, as well as on the latest Nasa information. He checks spaceweather.com twice a day for more detailed data, and he consults highly accurate weather reports from the local airport. But mostly, Andy Keen is as passionate and enthusiastic about the aurora borealis as his name suggests.Such is the allure of the northern lights that Andy, who grew up on the Wirral, has moved into an essentially nocturnal existence at the edge of the world and in some of the harshest conditions on the planet. He has been doing this professionally for five years and has in excess of 5,000 images of the aurora borealis. At the start of November, he left his home in Powys, Wales, and drove to northern Finland, where he has rented a house until April to run his tours. For a light chaser on a losing streak, like me, he is my banker.The thrill of the chase begins when Andy picks me up from my hotel in Ivalo ? a frontier town 350 miles north of the Arctic Circle and an hour-and-half's flight out of Helsinki ? at 7.30pm. The sun set four and half hours earlier, a thin layer of snow carpets the ground and the thermometer outside reads -12C. The flags in the hotel's forecourt indicate that there is no wind, but despite the fact that I am wearing enough clothing for three people, including a thermal jumpsuit and heavy boots, the cold is already beginning to creep in and my face is smarting by the time I get into Andy's cocoon-like van.We drive along Ivalo's short strip of low-rise shops and fast-food joints and in no time are plunged into a darkness that makes the town seem as brightly lit as a movie set. Our world has turned monochrome as we drive into wilderness, along narrow snow-compacted roads bordered by frosted pine trees that twinkle in the headlights like tinsel. Our soundtrack is a homemade aurora playlist that features Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky", Led Zep's "Stairway to Heaven" and David Bowie's "Starman". Adding to this slightly surreal scene is the fact that Andy bears an uncanny likeness to Bez from the Happy Mondays and is chatting away enthusiastically in a solid northern accent. Also in the van are Chad, a TV cameraman and stills photographer from Surbiton, and Tanya, who has turned her back on an Australian summer to be here.Our first viewing stop is on a bridge that runs over Lake Inari, the third largest lake in Finland. It is in the process of becoming a 1,000sq km ice rink, and emits a series of ghostly crackles and groans as the sheet of ice spreads over its surface. There is no other sound to be heard. There is no other traffic and no light pollution either. The night sky is breathtakingly clear and beautiful, the Milky Way mirroring the snowy landscape beneath it and the constellations ? Taurus, Aries, Gemini, Ursa major, Orion (thank you Star Walk app) ? are crystal clear.But there is no sign of the aurora borealis, so we press on, driving for 20 minutes to a youth hostel on the shore of Lake Muddusj�rvi and near the wilderness area of Muotkatunturi. We sit down on benches with a hot drink and look out over a clean white canvas to a moonless horizon. It is another hauntingly beautiful scene and Andy and Chad set up their cameras and start taking 20- to 30-second exposures of this winter wonderland. But they have seen something and when they call us over to look at their screens, they show us a thin green line hovering above the horizon. "Your first sighting of the aurora," says Andy proudly. Really, we say, where? And we look to where Andy is pointing at what we assumed was a distant wisp of cloud. "Blimey, that counts," I say a little desperately. "I'm definitely counting that! Let's celebrate!"We drive to Inari, 40km north of Ivalo, the home of Sami reindeer herders and the seat of the Sami Parliament. In March the locals hold reindeer races here. But this is a Saturday night in November, and in Hotel Inari it is karaoke night. It is 11.30pm and we stumble into what looks like a scene from a wedding party ? drink is flowing at the three lines of tables, someone is singing a Finnish song, a couple is dancing. We are clearly overdressed for the occasion and look like we have just returned from a polar expedition, all balaclavas, boilersuits and head torches. This is just the beginning of their winter ? the polar nights of December when the sun doesn't rise and the temperature plummets to -30C or -40C are still two weeks away ? so it's no wonder people are staring and smiling to themselves. But it would be rude to leave now. I celebrate my first sighting with a Lapin Kulta beer.We round off our night in a lookout tower that the forestry commission uses in the summer to search for wildfires among the pines and birch. At this height, two storeys up, the wind is whipping in and stinging my face into submission. But before I give in I witness the most spectacular shooting star ? a perfect curving beam of intense white light that then explodes like a firework into a ball of orange flame. Andy tells me that I have just seen a bolide meteor ? another first. I head back to my hotel room at 4am, tired and happy.The sun does not rise until 9.45am this far north and barely gets above the horizon before it begins to dip again around 1pm. I am out walking on the fells the next day around Urho Kekkonen National Park, in the Kiilop�� area, and at lunchtime the landscape suddenly takes on a warm glow. I think I must have lost track of time or my watch may have stopped, but the sun has softened and there is no mistaking that the day is nearly over already. An hour or so later, the horizon is a band of burnt orange and the landscape has a blue tinge: Finnish twilight or sininen hetki ? a celebrated time in winter, before permanent night descends.From Urho Kekkonen, you look out over forests and wilderness that stretch into Russia 50km to the east. That night Andy drives us for an hour to the border, where there is a sign with a red hand and the instruction to stop. We dutifully turn around and head for a bridge where we can see the lights of a Russian town burning on the horizon like a distant fire glow. To the north of this, clearly visible for the first time, I can make out the distinct vertical streaks and sinous curves of the northern lights. They are not neon-clear and dancing in all their glory but are moving slowly and only become distinctly green again on Andy and Chad's long-exposure shots. Nevertheless, there is enough charge in the air tonight, and I am as excited as a schoolboy to be on the edge of nowhere, enjoying a dreamlike adventure.I spend another sleepless night in a heated glass igloo in Kakslauttanen, a beautiful spot south of Ivalo next to a frozen river. It's like being suspended in a bubble, and an ideal vantage point from which to lie back and look up at the northern lights. But my luck has run out and, despite waking on the hour every hour, I see only stars.My final night is spent in another big patch of back country. The sky is clouded over and I'm happy to come in from the cold to the comforts of the Hotel Korpikartano in Menesj�rvi, where I luxuriate in a sauna before enjoying a dinner of reindeer meat with lingonberries and a pudding of local cloudberries with Anne and her husband Timor, who own the hotel. Timor was once an optician in Helsinki before he decided that he had had enough of close-up examinations of other people's eyes and preferred the empty and endless horizon of the north. Now he has retrained as a wilderness guide. A keen photographer, he shows me his pictures of the aurora borealis ? splendid spectral curtains and swirls of green and red ? and then we head outside to check the night sky before turning in. Tonight even the stars are hidden by a blanket of cloud.The next morning he tells me with a mischievous laugh that his friend Jaani, who runs a local reindeer farm, has phoned to say there was a high level of auroral activity last night ? the most there has been over my four-night stay ? between midnight and 2am. I groan. The jinx goes on.EssentialsFinnair (finnair.com) flies to Ivalo (via Helsinki) from LHR from �216 return and Manchester from �304 return, including all taxes and charges, based on departures for February 2012. For more information, go to Visit Finland (visitfinland.com)The Hotel Korpikartano (menesjarvi.fi) has doubles from ?89pn. A night in a glass igloo with half-board is ?197pn at Kakslauttanen (kakslauttanen.fi).For details of Andy Keen's next tour dates, go to Aurora Hunters (aurorahunters.com). Packages can be arranged through Specialised Tours (specialisedtours.com), with prices starting at �1,295pp, including flights, transfers and four nights' half-boardFinlandNorthern LightsAdventure travelAndy Pietrasikguardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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