Far North Friday #75: Stars

“Wow - that was a good one!” I recall vividly the first time I saw the northern lights - the aurora borealis. I was a child, almost asleep, when my Father rushed into the room. He lifted me up to the window to show me the northern lights. As a teen, on a clear night, we would lie on the dock by the lake in August and watch the hundreds of meteors. When working in the bush as a geologist, I enjoyed the best view of the night sky. I saw many meteors streak across the sky. The best northern lights I ever witnessed were in the sky north of Pickle Lake during the winter. While mapping the geology well north of Pickle Lake, I even saw a fireball (aka meteor) streak across the sky in broad daylight, followed by its “smoke trail”! No, it didn’t create a sonic blast and I wasn’t blown to the ground, but it was cool!

The scariest stars I ever experienced were the ones I saw inside my eyes. I was working alone - the geologist’s equivalent to “it was a dark and stormy night” - which was the practice in the mid-1970’s. It was magical bush. Tall mature spruce trees growing on low relief ground. The ground was entirely covered by 6 inches of moss. I don’t mean patches of moss. It was a carpet of moss that covered the land everywhere I walked. I came across a fallen tree. Rather than go around, I climbed onto, and started to walk along, one of the fallen trees. I slipped, arched my back, and crashed to the ground face down with my pack sack on my back.

You might recall watching cartoons where the character received a blow to its head and always saw stars. Well, for that instant, after I hit the ground, I saw stars. Yes, light spots moving slowly across my eyesight. I lay there for about 1 minute. I felt no pain. I methodically tested each limb. Left arm. Check. Right arm. Check. Left leg. Check. Right Leg. Check. Then the big one. Could I twist or roll without pain? To my enormous relief, all systems appeared to work.

I sat there and reflected on the seriousness of what had just happened. I was alone. No one knew exactly where I was. Yes, they knew the lake where I had been dropped off. And they knew the lake where I was to be picked up. But, no one knew where I was exactly. Had I broken a leg, or worse, broken my back, I was as good as dead. I would have become animal food.

That incident - and no, I did not report it - left a lasting impression on me. We continued to work alone, the practice of the day. But, from that day forward, I approached each fallen tree with the analytical capacity of a Cray supercomputer, assessing the best route under, over, or around.

I still enjoy watching stars. And I still excitedly shout “wow that was a good one”. But the most memorable were the stars I saw in my eyes because they were almost the last ones I saw.

March 03/22; Facebook: Feb 25/22