Here in Greenstone, star gazers will find some of the best opportunities for viewing the Northern Lights in Ontario. Often appearing in displays of green, blue, violet, red, and yellow, the clear dark night skies and wide open spaces of Greenstone make it a prime spot for aurora gazing.
Whether enjoyed from a seat on your own front lawn or camping in the backcountry here, the spectacular display is common throughout Greenstone and most frequently seen at the time of the equinoxes.
Interesting Facts
- The Aurora Borealis is also called the northern lights because it is only visible in the North sky from the Northern Hemisphere
- The Aurora Borealis is named after the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and Boreas, the Greek name for north wind.
- The Aurora Borealis most often occurs from September to October and from March to April.
- The auroras coincide with periods of greatest sunspot activity and with magnetic storms
- The Northern Lights can appear as patches of light, in the form of streamers, arcs, banks, rays, or resembling hanging draperies
- The Northern Lights occur between 35 mi and 600 mi (56 km–970 km) above the earth
- In Inuit folklore, Northern Lights were believed to be the spirits of the dead playing football with a walrus skull over the sky
- The Algonquin believed the lights to be their ancestors dancing around a ceremonial fire
- The Finnish name for Northern Lights is revontulet, fox fires. According to legend, foxes made of fire lived in Lapland, and revontulet were the sparks they whisked up into the atmosphere with their tails.