He’s elusive. He’s mysterious. He’s as hot as the Earth’s core.
“ That baby snowshoe hare is n’t impressed with our lighter , ” says my guide , Jeff , motioning for us to turn our headlamps from blank to red . We ’re at the border ofJohnston Canyon , awaterfallcorridor inBanff National Park , crunching through the night ’s mid - December snow .
We potter along the bridge , the water system like cannon fire beneath us , but I ’m in use looking at the sky . Jeff ’s waxing poetic about our ascendant using the night “ just as it come , ” about how torch and artificial ignitor really made them seeless . He ’s explicate how human discover and smell substantially in darkness or downhearted Light Within . I ’m listening , but true distracted . Besides the hare , we ’ve come across fossils and even had a run - in with a fox . But my thoughts are adhere on Steve .
Steve ’s been avoiding me these past few nights in Banff . After all , he can be unpredictable — the big boy character . The kind of guy who shows upjustafter you ’ve given up . You know the kind : Elusive . mystifying . As hot as the Earth ’s heart .
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And I just need one dark with him .
We’re talking about a celestial phenomenon
Steve is kind of like thenorthern lights , but not precisely . He ’s a landing strip of ionise gas that ’s 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit and moves at 3.5 miles per secondly . He ’s 16 miles all-embracing , 1000 of mile long , and loves to hang out around the Canadian province of Alberta and specifically Banff National Park , where he can typically be spotted much lower and later than his dawning cousins .
Though he ’s been documented on and off for centuries , Steve did n’t garner widespread attention until 2016 . Amateur aurora chasers were stupefy by the heavenly phenomenon , which had n’t ever been named . Eventually , they went with “ Steve , ” in reference to a DreamWorks movie calledOver the Hedge — in the moving-picture show , a character named Hammy the Squirrelgives the titular and awe - inspire hedge that same name . scientist quickly catch on and managed to give Steve a backronym : Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement .
To the naked eye , Steve usually appears whitish - purpleness and wispy . He prefer to ham it up for the camera ; somehow he transforms into a fulgurant ribbon of garden pink , with dark-green fingers hang down from his farseeing , lanky , nearly erect arc . He can count like the disappearing condensation trail of a planer , but he ’s full of push — his electrons move as fast as 15,000 miles per hour .
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With that much charisma at his disposal , it ’s no curiosity he wo n’t so much as coup d’oeil at me .
Desperately seeking Steve
By nighttime two , Steve has become my military mission . I decide to go somewhere out in the surface to let him know I ’m concerned , to lay my circuit board out on the mesa . It ’s time to make myself vulnerable , which signify no more traipsing around limestone canyons with Canadians named Jeff .
But I do need a guy wire bring up Paul — Paul Zizka , to be specific . I attain out to the Banff - based lensman who then points me to the N end of Banff National Park where " light pollution is nonexistent , ” advocate spots like Bow Lake and Graveyard Flats . Zizka has met Steve on roughly 20 occasions and mentions that , if he evidence up , he can stay put for up to an hour — another way in which he differs from his more fleeting cousin . evidently , even if he initially plays severely to get , he ’s no histrion once he makes a connection . I ’m practically swooning .
I press my options and go withBow Lake , one of the large bodies of water in Banff . I had been there earlier in the workweek , driving down the Icefields Parkway , and there was nary a soul in sight ; night , of course of study , is no dissimilar . I reckon up to see the rubble of the Milky Way and the peak of theWaputik Range — but no Steve . With the wind pick up and Bow Lake being especially gusty , my Leslie Townes Hope tanks . I ’ve been stood up .
Courtesy of Jacqueline Kehoe
On my way back to townsfolk , though , I have an idea : Lake Louise . It ’s a domain - illustrious slur , and I partake it with only a dozen or so people a few days back . On a snowy mid - December night , that number would surely be close to zero . I ’d get a singular show , regardless of whether Steve decided to beautify me with his presence .
Bingo . I was correct : This place is all mine . Though I know the lake is cover in a sheet of whitened , nightfall makes it seem blue again . To be alone somewhere so virtually mythologic sense kin to metre travelling — or to see the apocalypse , count on whether your methamphetamine is half - empty or half - full . Either room , it ’s a reminder of nature ’s rich existence without us .
I quickly find that I ’m alone , perhaps , because I ’m too early . Steve believes in being fashionably late to the political party : He ’ll often show up 30 to 45 bit after any dayspring show ends , if he prove up at all . With a splinter of lunar month to light up my nighttime sky , I tramp along the trail that skirts the lake ’s edge , too nervous to walk out onto the former - wintertime surface . The nighttime sky sparkles . The Milky Way seems to whisper , " No Steve . " I kill time fumbling with hoarfrost , convert myself that I can pick up foxes . But the common cold gets to me , the night gets to me , and I channelise back to my motorcar .
Courtesy of Jacqueline Kehoe
We ’ve still never pass the Nox together , but Steve ’s somehow already charge me on a base on balls of pity .
Basking in the glow
It ’s my last night in Banff , and I ’m torn : Do I give Steve another luck ? Do I waste my time on yet another man who has shownzerointerest in me ?
No . I would ’ve fall for that in my 20s , but I ’m in my 30s now , and I make love what to do instead : carbo - load and stay busy . Strengthening my spine atLupo — an Italian joint that script - rolls their pesto campanelle — I maneuver for the Banff Gondola andNightrise , a light experience that honors the sky from the Stoney Nakoda perspective . I did n’t need Steve to have a radiantly good metre .
“ Diamond Dust . Alpenglow . Cosmic shaft of light , ” say the voice emanating from my gondola pod . “ At the top of this mountain , there are occult , fleeting wonders awaiting in the darkness . ”
Really , gentle and disembodied Stoney Nakoda voice?I thought . Don’t secernate me Steve has been up here the entire clock time .
Eight minutes later , I ’m out on the chopine of the Sulphur Mountain summit — what the Stoney Nakoda call Mînî Rhuwîn . From up here , I can see all of the Ithiel Town of Banff and the Bow Valley . The city lights gleaming quaintly below the productive , jaggy peak .
Still , no Steve .
In a glowing , giant baptismal font , the platform floor read , “ Listen to this thought . Slow down and let go . ” I take this to mean it ’s fourth dimension to wave my ashen iris . I have to accept — and I do — that I may never see Steve . In my psyche , he ’s still a fleeting wonderment waiting in the dark .
