God helps me even when I am not expecting it.

I made my trip up north to Selawik on Tuesday morning leaving the house at 4 am making my way to the airport for my Alaska Air flight to Kotzebue.  We took off into the clear cold night sky leaving the sparkling lights of Anchorage below as we turned northwest for the one hour forty five minute flight.  I thought about grabbing a nap since this would be a long day returning to Anchorage around midnight but chose to instead listen to my music on the iPod and enjoy the coffee and Danish the flight attendant had given me. 

I sat next to the window but many of these early morning trips I do not spend time looking out the windows since in the darkness it is like looking into a black hole in space.  Tonight was different as there was almost a full moon to the west a couple hours away from setting casting its silvery bluish glow on the landscape below.

As we made our way at flight level 340 (34,000’) and had just crossed over the Yukon River below with its ribbon like look cutting across the landscape I looked up into the darkness and saw the lights turn on for about two minutes.   “The Lights” as we call them are the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights and it is a heavenly sight to witness them dancing across the heavens.  The come and go without warning usually in late night/early morning hours and can last seconds to hours depending on previous solar activity on the sun.

This was brief but being so far north on commercial airplanes you can easily see the curvature of the earth and on this morning the lights briefly dancing over the snowy scene below.

We made our approach into Kotzebue and walked over to Bering Air for the fifty minute flight east to Selawik.  We taxi out from the terminal and take runway 9 and the glimpses of first light are on the horizon.  We climb out to 4,500 feet flying over tundra ice and white as far as one can see in any direction.  The blue hue from the moon is still visible and makes things eerily beautiful.     

Have you ever seen a sunrise?

It turns a dark, cold, and for some people a scary night . . . into a beautiful morning.  It is so awe-inspiring to watch the sunrise. 

Everything used to be black.

There is silence, and almost every scary movie you have ever seen happened at night.  Then the sun comes out . . . What a difference the sun makes!  Many times I have gone to Selawik it has been either raining, snowing or cloudy.  This is the first trip into a clear sky at morning.

This ever dark night sky isn’t asked to change . . . it just does.
First you can barely see the difference.  It turns from black to a beautiful dark, dark blue.  Then you start to see shades of orange peek through.

Don’t blink . . .

Orange starts to turn to bright yellow and even bright pink, just bursting through covering the horizon.  Now that old dark sky doesn’t have a chance . . . The sun is starting to impact everything.

Now you can see down the horizon.
The entire sky is starting to change.

What was once dark and cold is now being taken over by the light.
The funny thing is . . . I haven’t even seen the sun yet.
I have only seen the colors it produces.
But I know the sun is changing everything.

There is no denying . . . the sun is about to come.

Sitting in the airplane I am captive to what is happening around me.

I can’t even move . . . I stare at the skyline . . . just waiting to see what effect it will have next to the landscape.  I am amazed at the beauty of the unseen edges of the sun intruding on the darkness of the night.  The red sits about three to four inches tall stretching northeast to southeast across the horizon and growing with each few seconds.

As we arrive and make our approach and landing to the west in Selawik I look now to the opposite side of the sky . . . the west.  It’s still pretty dark, but not as bad as it was a little while ago when we boarded the plane.  The moon now is just above the horizon slowly sinking.  It will make its way just below the visible landscape by a few degrees its arc just out of our sight only to make it to the point of rising again in about five hours.

  

Even way over there to the west, the former black is now a hazy purple-blue.
One day, even the farthest and darkest part will be overcome once again.

What a difference the sun makes, it has made me forget it is minus 40 below zero outside, the wind chill adding another 15 to 20 degrees in the wrong direction.  My nasal hair frozen in a few seconds, my breath freezing as I exhale coating my mustache and goggles with ice.  My fur lined hood on my jacket keeping the wind out and my ears warm. 

The mile walk from the airport to the water treatment plant was mostly silent except for the dogs barking smelling new “scents” in town.  The sounds of our footsteps crunching on the snow in the steady cadence from our brisk pace was only broken by a snow machine going by taking supplies for the village to the post office or distribution center by City Hall.

God surprises me with the beauty of our world and helps me forget the ‘worldly’ woes going on around us.  I had expected a brutal day in the elements and found one of the clearest awe inspiring days in a long while.

My humble thanks for being with me in spite of my shortcomings.

Ice