Stop gaslighting me about the northern lights
And the Fort Nelson wildfires are really driving home the death of local news
On Friday I had planned to watch the northern lights but, with the evacuation of Fort Nelson underway, that switched to working in the newsroom. But when I started seeing people posting about the lights being out, I did run outside to see them and caught a bit of white in the distance over the light of downtown. I did text my wife to ask if she was looking at them, and her response was that they were OK, but mostly just white and static — pretty much what I could see.
Meanwhile, my Facebook feed was looking like this:
What gives?
Fortunately, this isn’t my first rodeo with the northern lights. I have been fortunate to see them while on a camping trip in Yukon, as well as several times here in town over the past decade. And it has been in the last decade that I came to realize: The northern lights look a lot different through a camera lens than they do to the naked eye.
Don’t get me wrong: I have seen some great examples of them, dancing and green and purple and blue, including from my own yard, and I love seeing even the static white ones. I’m not jaded. But the reality is most of the time they are what I saw Friday night: White, and kind of moving but mostly hard to distinguish from cloud, until you hold up your cellphone to take a look and suddenly they turn spectacular. This is a documented phenomenon to the point that the Huffington Post wrote an article about in 2015 titled “The Northern Lights Don’t Look Anything Like They Do In Photos” explaining why:
The discrepancy occurs because the specific cells that our eyes use to detect light at night also happen to be terrible at detecting color, according to Dr. Andrea Thau, vice president of the American Optometric Association. For that reason, auroras often appear only in shades of gray.
It’s also documented on Space.com:
On the website Astropix, Jerry Lodriguss describes it this way: "Humans use two different kinds of cells in their eyes to sense light. Cone cells, concentrated in the fovea in the central area of vision, are high resolution and detect color in bright light. These are the main cells we use for vision in the daytime. Rod cells, concentrated in the periphery around the outside of the fovea, can detect much fainter light at night, but only see in black and white and shades of gray. [Aurora] only appear to us in shades of gray because the light is too faint to be sensed by our color-detecting cone cells."
Thus, the human eye primarily views the Northern Lights in faint colors and shades of gray and white. DSLR camera sensors don't have that limitation. Couple that fact with the long exposure times and high ISO settings of modern cameras and it becomes clear that the camera sensor has a much higher dynamic range of vision in the dark than people do.
And now with cellphone cameras getting better and better, everyone is able to have this effect, not just professional photographers.
And yet — nobody talks about this! This weekend’s display of the northern lights was seen around the world so I was seeing photos come in from all across North America, Europe, etc… and very few people were adding “they look so much more spectacular in photos!” It’s like we’re all involved in one big lie.
The people I feel most bad for in this are the ones who travel up north in the hopes of seeing the northern lights and then do, but get confused about why they aren’t anything like they see in all the photos. Can you imagine? You’ve made a special trip in the hopes of seeing a once-in-a-lifetime (for you) event and you’re left befuddled because so few people are honest about what they really look like? In my travels around the world I’ve placed major bucket list items in categories of “meets expectations” “exceeds expectations” and “fails to meet expectations.” Inevitably, the ones that have failed to meet them are the ones where photographs make them look grander and more exciting than they really are — Stonehenge and the Terracotta Army come to mind. I am lucky enough that I live somewhere that I’ve been seeing the northern lights as far back as I can remember but I fear that we have hyped them up so much that for people coming to see them for the first time, we’re setting them up for disappointment.
(PS it’s possible I missed a really great display and that’s fine but my point stands! The northern lights are never as colourful as they are in photos! Science backs me up here!)
The Fort Nelson wildfires are really driving home the death of local news
As mentioned above, my Friday night was mostly spent covering the wildfire that forced the evacuation of the entirety of Fort Nelson and I’ve been monitoring it since. I’ve been a couple of times and it’s a great little town and I really, really hope things don’t take the turn for the worse that is being predicted as I write this. And one thing that stands out to me while monitoring the various conversations and questions floating around Facebook is: There is no local news serving the community.
Last fall, the Fort Nelson News, which had served the community since 1959, shut down. A month later the Alaska Highway News, headquartered in Fort St. John and founded in 1943, followed suit. And it’s not just a lack of newspaper: Fort Nelson has no local TV station and the only local radio is an adult contemporary station that, when I tuned in over the weekend, was just playing pre-recorded DJ bits that were being simulcast to multiple stations across Canada. There is one local DJ who is supposed to be on air tomorrow morning and has posted a couple of Facebook updates but yeah — that’s it. No full time journalists or reporters or dedicated news site for a community of roughly 4,000 people, a four drive from Fort St. John, where the only newsroom, EnergeticCity, belongs to a country radio station and does a good job on the quick updates but again, is not local to Fort Nelson.
Of course, CBC and CTV and Global are all providing coverage of the major updates but there’s always a gap between what works for a provincial or national audience and what the locals want. Everyone wants to know things like “how far is the fire from town” and “when will the highway reopen” but a hyper-local news team can also provide stories like “how’s the bakery doing?” and “where can I take my pets?” Obviously, Facebook groups are very much a thing but in the absence of news being allowed to be posted to Meta properties, I’m seeing there’s some difficulty with people sharing info that is verified or having a definitive place to go (I can’t imagine that not having a Facebook account is even an option in a place like Fort Nelson, at this point). There’s only so many ways you can say “entire communities not having any reporters is a bad thing” but when disaster strikes, it really underlines what’s missing.
News roundup:
The Prince George reception centre has been opened for evacuees from Fort Nelson. Re-upping: The city is hoping to open a permanent reception centre given how often this is happening now.
Evacuation alert in place for Crescent Spur, near the Ancient Forest.
Space program captures images of B.C.'s dry riverbeds as drought continues.
Remember how Cameron Stolz said the Citizen was going to be a “Pro-Prince George” newspaper focused on finding solutions now? I guess that means writing 1500 word articles about his personal experience with crime, concluding, “The pendulum has swung too far in favour of criminals.”
Canfor is upset with the province. The province is upset with Canfor. The union is upset with both. You’ll never guess how opposition MLAs feel. The mayor just wants to pivot out of relying on the company.
Lheidli T’enneh Councillor removed following criminal charge.
Mark Nielsen has more reporting from last week’s 4 hour+ council session: Row housing proposal survives public hearing and council ponders how to expedite unfunded capital projects.
Annual Nagar Kirtan celebration set to return to Prince George this weekend.
Today’s song:
Northern Capital News is a free, daily newsletter about life in Prince George. Please consider subscribing or, if you have, sharing with someone else.
Send feedback by emailing northerncapitalnews@gmail.com. Find me online at akurjata.ca.
You did miss a great display! We were out at the bobtail rec site on naltesby lake. I agree that a good ol 4 second shutter speed makes them more brilliant, but we saw so many colours too! Last time I saw a show like that was about 20 years ago and I was camping at crystal lake, just by bear lake (you cant camp there now, day use only). Otherwise northern lights ive seen have been green and gray. .
Re: Northern Lights - the same can be said for coral reefs and scuba diving. Because the light doesn't penetrate the water, what you see with the naked eye is dull and washed out and it gets worse the deeper you go. The photos we see of colourful reefs are taken by underwater photographers who have high powered underwater lights that they train on the reef to make the colours pop. It's still a spectacular thing to see underwater life up close, but you have to temper your expectations a bit. I've met many a new diver who is a little disappointed when it's not quite what they imagined.