Northern Lights in Bodø – Norway

Researching and planning for a trip is easily my favourite hobby. If not everyday, atleast once in 2-3 days I will be researching on my next probable destinations. I get a different high while planning trips. And more often than not it’s yielded me successful results (success here means that overall I was extremely happy with the whole trip and the only regret was returning back to face the dreaded Monday). But planning for the Northern Lights in Bodø – Norway was a different ball game altogether. I mean, how do you plan for a probabilistic event? Add to it constraints on time, money and location (more on that later). But who said Hope is not a Strategy 😛 With Google in my hands and hope in my heart I set out for Bodø in anticipation of Earth’s greatest light show.

What are Northern Lights and how do they occur

My first tryst with the Northern Lights was a BBC documentary by Joanna Lumley – ‘Hunt for The Northern Lights’. Since then the fascination for them never waned.

The Sun continuously releases charged particles towards the Earth. The Earth’s magnetic field deflects most of the particles but since they are weak at the poles, these particles enter the Earth’s atmosphere. On entering the atmosphere they collide with different gas particles and emit light of different colors. In the North Pole these are called Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis and in the South Pole it’s called Southern Lights or Aurora Australis.

When and Where to see the Northern Lights

Your best bet to witness the Northern Lights would be Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia. Not the full country, but places which lie near or above the Arctic Circle.

Note: You can see the lights at other places as well but the above mentioned ones have a high probability

Dark and clear skies are a must to see the lights. Places above the Arctic Circle have really long days in summer and long nights in winter. Hence, early September to early April is the best time to catch the Northern Lights.

But this doesn’t mean that on any day between the given above months you are assured of a show. The Northern Lights depend on a lot of other factors (which I will cover in a later post). When I went through all these information, I knew a lot of planning would be required and perhaps that too won’t suffice!

Planning the journey to Bodø

I had a hike planned to the Pulpit Rock in the last week of September. Although it was a task in itself to plan the hike, the journey was one hell of an experience. You can read about my Pulpit Rock hike in detail here. I had 2 nights more in hand and it is when I thought about fitting in the Northern Lights. While searching the net for the best places in Norway to see the Northern Lights, I came across this link https://www.norway-lights.com/  which gave a prediction about the lights on a particular day. I will definitely recommend using this website since a lot of scientific work is behind their predictions. There are 3 predictions it offers: Go, Try and Wait with Go signifying a high chance, Wait meaning wait for a better time and Try being 50-50.  The two places which had a Go prediction on the 2 nights were Bodø and Tromsø. Now let me be honest here, I hadn’t heard the names of both these places before. So the first thing I did was to open my Eurail App and search for a train from Oslo to both these places. I couldn’t get any results with Tromsø (I later learnt that there is no station in Tromsø). There was a train to Bodø (in the Eurail app type Bodoe to get the results) but it was 18 hours long with one change at Trondheim. It was an easy decision to make since even taking a flight would have fetched my 2 nights. With Eurail Global Pass, I would not only save cost on the train but it also was a chance to explore the Norwegian scenery by rail.

Northern Lights in Bodø

I took an overnight train from Oslo to Bodø via Trondheim. Well, 18 hrs on a train doesn’t sound exciting but let me know assure you Norwegian trains are a class apart. They provide a pillow and a blanket (which you can take home as a souvenir) along with free WiFi. And don’t forget the gorgeous scenery, you aren’t feeling tired one bit!

Bodø is the last railway station in Norway rail network, no trains run beyond it. I reached Bodø at 1730 hours. It’s only after getting down I realized that I had crossed the Arctic Circle. I asked a few people the direction towards my AirBnb. The owner welcomed me into his beautiful house. We struck a chord immediately since he too had a connection with Mumbai. We discussed about the chances of Northern Lights in Bodø for the night and he marked a few locations on a map which were the best ones to view the phenomenon. One was at Mount Ronvik, which was a few kms away from his place. The other was a ferry terminal, which was quite near to our location. It had been a long train journey and a good hot shower felt perfect. I was googling some information when the owner banged on my door. As soon as I opened the gate, he said pointing towards the sky “It’s started”. I rushed towards a window to look up and there was the green fairy dancing in the sky. Apart from a dark sky, one has to be in an area with minimal light pollution to ensure a good viewing. And hence the owner had marked those locations on the map. I could see the lights from my room as well but for a better viewing experience I had to step out. I grabbed my camera and ran towards the ferry terminal. The light pollution here was quite less although not zero. But I had no complaints. How could I?  I stood there watching the green lights make random patterns. Somewhere in between I also saw a tinge of pink. After a few minutes I clicked a photo of the Northern Lights….I mean that’s what I thought  😛

Photographing the Northern Lights

There are tons and tons of articles on how to photograph the Northern Lights. I will write a detailed post on the same. But for now I will only state one fact: you cannot click a good photograph of Northern Lights without a tripod. In addition, you have to have the right ISO, shutter time and focus settings. The first photo I clicked of the Northern Lights was by simply pointing my camera towards the sky and clicking the button. The result was a disaster. I couldn’t understand what was going wrong and quickly googled to find an article on the settings required. I then tried clicking using those settings and the pictures started coming out better. Had researched so much on where to see the Northern Lights but it didn’t cross my mind even once to read about photographing them. Anyways, I was more than happy with whatever I was able to capture. It was 45 minutes of pure bliss; a grand show put up by the skies (should thank the Sun, electromagnetic field and the gas particles as well). First the Pulpit Rock and now the Northern Lights, I had somehow managed to beat the odds.

Northern Lights, once again!

I woke up quite late the next day. After having my breakfast, I headed out to the Bodø public library. I wanted to back-up my photos from the previous night and library was the only place where I could find a computer. My train back to Oslo was at 9 pm and had enough time to explore the town. But I was too happy to do anything. I just found a nice spot to view the sea and the ships and witnessed a very dramatic sunset.

I bid farewell to my super kind host and reached the station at 8:00 pm. There was still time for the train but I just wanted to hang out near that area. I was a chatting to a lady who had been to the Lofoten Islands, when a man suddenly came running in and told his wife “There are lights in the sky”. We all ran outside and there they were! It was much intense than the previous night although the light pollution kind of played a spoilsport. But I couldn’t have asked for more. Till the time I boarded my train, the show went on. Even after the train began its journey, for the next 10 minutes I kept on staring at the sky in hope of catching them one last time. The lights were gone but I promised myself to chase them once again.

How to reach Bodø from Oslo by train

Catch an overnight train to Trondheim and then another train to Bodø. The total journey is around 18 hours. If you have a Eurail Pass, you only need to pay a nominal reservation fee of 6 euros. Bodø has an airport as well and there are flights available from Oslo.