​Northern days are getting shorter, transferring their brightness to the lengthening night. Crazy long nights which amazingly, rather than suffocating one with overwhelming darkness, provides a canvas for the ethereal Aurora Borealis. The Borealis is a huge perk to living in northern climes. 
By far the best Northern Lights display I have yet witnessed was a time when some friends and I slept out along the river in ​Wrigley, NWT. As we lay on the shore of the Mackenzie River, cuddled deep into our sleeping bags, the lights played low and brilliantly; dancing for most of the night. With a grande finale where the Borealis swirled together, forming what looked like a giant ghostly hand which dropped lower and lower until it seemed to hover just above us. When it seemed as though it could descend no further, the lights closed into a fist, shimmering and pulsing as it ascended and dissipated into the depths of the night.

 Painting of the Mackenzie Rest Inn, a wonderful bed and breakfast located in Fort Simpson, NWT - gateway to the Nahanni National Park Reserve

Process - the daunting road to a finished piece, a curve in time documented only by obsessive pics. As time can pass with me barely registering the path I took to get to the layer I am currently working on. These are not the best of pics as I take them randomly with my phone with no sense of light play or time of day. Though as the long northern days are slowly melting away into lengthening darkness I am discovering (somewhat quickly) my paltry artificial light coverage. I am realizing that I am going to have to devote some time to lamp set up!

Stargazers
Following the North Star
Breezes ripple
Swirling already agitated waters
Whipping the sea into a frenzy of night
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