Fall is here and there are plenty of signs beyond the date on the calendar.  The days are shorter, the nights are cooler, the stars seem brighter and we have started fall dry land training runs!  Here in Wisconsin, the temperatures are dipping into the 40s by morning so we are taking advantage of the coolness to harness up and run ahead of the 4-wheeler for a few miles early in the morning.  We see that the leaves on the trees are beginning to turn bright colors and we’ve noticed big long yellow vehicles with lots of windows going past our kennel.  Happy children are looking out the windows.  I believe these exceptionally big motorized boxes are called school busses!  I’ve never ridden in one, have you?  School starting is a sure sign of fall!

I was very happy to receive the first issue of Mush On Vol 2.  I like to see how children are learning through Iditarod.  I noticed the story about the Arch Deacon of the Yukon, Hudson Stuck.  I checked the kennel library and much to my delight there was a copy of Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled by Hudson Stuck on the shelf.  On a lazy afternoon, I flipped the book open to a chapter about the beautiful northern lights.  I remember seeing the northern lights in Alaska before I moved to Wisconsin.  Stuck’s description of the colorful electric sky brought back memories for me. 

Some of you have perhaps never personally seen the northern lights but by reading what Stuck wrote describing the northern lights he’s seen; you might get the picture.  Here’s  a short segment from chapter XIII of Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled.  Let your imagination create the scene Arch Deacon Stuck describes.

From Chapter XIII – The Northern Lights

“It began by an exquisite and delicate weaving of fine fluorescent filaments of light in and out among the stars until a perfect network was formed, like lace amidst diamonds, first in one quarter of the heavens, then in another, then stretching and weaving its web right across the sky.  For an hour or more the ceaseless extension and looping of these infinitely elastic threads of light went on with constant variations in their brilliance and never an instant’s cessation of motion.”  Later in the chapter, Arch Deacon Stuck says, “Some claim to have heard frequently and unmistakably a swishing sound accompanying the movement of the aurora, and there are some who claim to have detected an odor accompanying it.”  Stuck says that he has never experienced hearing or smelling the northern lights even at the peak of their activity.

Considering that the “lights” are the result of collisions between gaseous particles in the earth’s atmosphere and charged particles from the sun’s atmosphere, it seems they might make noise upon colliding.  Smell?  Well considering that we dogs have really powerful sniffers, we’d know if they had an odor.  What about feeling something like static electricity?  The Arch Deacon of the Yukon never mentioned that in his description of the aurora.

Students, here’s your challenge.  Using the photos of the northern lights captured 1 minute apart during the Jr. Iditarod at Cantwell in 2015, describe the scene in detail so that someone who hasn’t seen the pictures or seen the aurora might fully appreciate how spectacular and lively the aurora can be.  The three photos show how dynamic the northern lights can be in a very short period of time.  Or, you could decide to paint a picture with words of one of your favorite spots in nature. 

Whichever you choose, try to include all of the senses – sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste in your description.  Have fun following Hudson Stuck down the trail of vivid descriptive writing!