“Get out of the car! Now!” exclaims Lorenzo Mirandola. Startled and sleepy faces look at him from the back seat. Meanwhile, he rips open the driver’s door, jumps out of the car and rushes to the trunk to get his camera. His passengers slowly start to move, too, and the sliding door of the small bus slowly rolls open.
“Guys, quick! Otherwise you’ll miss the best,” shouts Lorenzo, pounding the pane with the palm of his hand. At the edge of a snowy country road in the middle of nowhere in Lapland, the minibus is parked with hazard warning lights on. Lorenzo throws back his head and looks up at the night sky. A fine trail of green light appears up there, increasing in intensity by the second. It’s what Lorenzo has been waiting for all night: dancing northern lights.
Northern lights are the great passion of the 29-year-old. He’s wanted to see them ever since he gave a presentation on colored lights in elementary school. But in Verona, where he grew up, the probability of this is particularly low. At the age of 24 he came to Finland as an exchange student and went alone on his bike to hunt for the Northern Lights.
Surreal: The night sky over the Rovaniemi area.
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Image: Lorenzo Mirandola, Luisa Schaffner
With eight customers, Lorenzo set off north in the early evening hours under a clear sky. He explains: “I check the webcams. Clouds are gathering south of Rovaniemi. That’s why we have to make sure that we leave the clouds behind.” As an environmental engineer, he knows how to interpret solar activity, weather maps and diagrams and can roughly calculate where the chances of seeing the northern lights are high. Prerequisite is a cloudless sky and low light pollution.
“We have to be in the right place at the right time”
Aurora borealis are formed when the solar wind interacts with the magnetosphere. The electrons coming from the sun hit the gas particles in the upper atmosphere, causing them to glow in different colors. The most common color seen with the naked eye is green. With strong solar activity, there is a chance to see pink lights as well. The best conditions to experience the Northern Lights are in autumn and spring. In the past week, the phenomenon could even be seen in some parts of Germany. Northern lights have been sighted in the night sky over Kiel and in Brandenburg, and they are expected to continue to be seen in the next few days.
Lorenzo Mirandola and Luisa Schaffner chasing the northern lights – obviously successful.
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Image: Lorenzo Mirandola, Luisa Schaffner
Lorenzo was only supposed to stay in Finland for four months, but he kept extending it and looked for a job in Rovaniemi as a Northern Lights guide alongside his studies. This work frustrated him more and more over time, as he had to pretend to tourists that there was a chance to see the Northern Lights, despite poor weather conditions. He has since founded his own company with his girlfriend Luisa Schaffner: Arctic Road Trips. Their strategy: Customers only pay if they actually experience the Northern Lights. The two promise on their website that this is 98 percent the case. “If we don’t see the northern lights, we divide the cost of fuel by the number of participants. We think that’s fair,” says Luisa. The 23-year-old tourism management student comes from Willmering in the Upper Palatinate.
She owes the fact that she ended up in Rovaniemi to the corona pandemic. There was one of the few universities that kept the Erasmus program running. She met Lorenzo at varsity volleyball and they fell in love. He infected her with his enthusiasm for the dancing lights. During the pandemic, they spent many nights in search of spectacular Northern Lights photo opportunities. “I don’t use Photoshop. I want to capture the Northern Lights as they are,” says Lorenzo. The two posted the photos on Instagram, and the reactions were so positive that some wanted to accompany them on their photo tours. They ended up making a business out of it.
If you are traveling with them, you have to bring time and be spontaneous, since the coordinates and data can change again and again. “We have to be in the right place at the right time. It never gets boring. You’re so tense: Can I make it this time?” Luisa describes her fascination with hunting the Northern Lights. To do this, the two also cover a few kilometers, sometimes even up to 1000 kilometers at night.
Lorenzo has already kept his promise that evening: His passengers saw the colorful lights despite the full moon and veil of clouds. In his database, however, he can see that something bigger is coming. But the cloud cover in the rear-view mirror is closing in and he is trying to find the last clear spot. Then it happens: the data hit the spot. A green band forms in the sky, he brakes. “I’ve been waiting for this!” exclaims Lorenzo. A couple hugs each other crying with joy, two friends scream, others just stare. “That’s exactly what makes me happy,” says Lorenzo. By that he means the Northern Lights on the one hand and the reaction of his customers on the other.
arcticroadtrips.com, depending on the season 160 to 200 euros.