rilliance than in the regions ten or fifteen degrees
farther south. It may be said roundly that it is a rare thing in winter
for a still, clear night, when there is not much moon, to pass without
some auroral display in the interior of Alaska. As long as we have any
night at all in the early summer, and as soon as we begin to have night
again late in the summer, they may be seen; so that one gains the
impression that the phenomenon occurs the year round and is merely
rendered invisible by the perpetual daylight of midsummer.

[Sidenote: A GENERAL AURORA]

The Alaskan auroras seem to divide themselves into two great classes,
those that occupy the whole heavens on a grand scale and appear to be at
a great distance above the earth, and those that are smaller and seem
much closer. Inasmuch as a letter written from Fort Yukon to a town in
Massachusetts describing one of the former class brought a reply that on
the same night a brilliant aurora was observed there also, it would seem
that auroras on the grand scale are visible over a large part of the
earth's surface at once, whereas the lesser manifestations, though
sometimes of great brilliance and beauty, give one the impression of
being local.

One gets, unfortunately, so accustomed to this light in the sky in
Alaska that it becomes a matter of course and is little noticed unless
it be extraordinarily vivid. Again, often very splendid displays occur
in the intensely cold weather, when, no matter how warmly one may be
clad, it is impossible to stand still long outdoors, and outdoors an
observer must be to follow the constant movement that accompanies the
aurora. Moreover, there is something very tantalising in the observing,
for it is impossible to say at what moment an ordinary waving auroral
streamer that stretches its greenish milky light across the sky,
beautiful yet commonplace, may burst forth into a display of the first
magnitude, or if it will do so at all.

The winter traveller has the best chance for observing this phenomenon,
because much of his travel is done before daylight, and often much more
than he desires or deserves is done after daylight; while, if his
journeys be protracted so long as snow and ice serve for passage at all,
towards spring he will travel entirely at night instead of by day.

It is intended in this chapter merely to attempt a description of a few
of the more striking auroral displays that the writer has seen, the
accounts being transc