Over the last couple of weeks, people in the Lakes District have been enchanted by the frequent occurrences of the northern lights.

These frequent occurrences have been particularly splendid for Takumi Ichiro Sakiyama, a local photographer who is always on the hunt to capture nature鈥檚 light show through his lens.

When Sakiyama noticed that the northern lights were active on Aug. 16, he immediately picked up his camera and hopped into his truck.

鈥淚 checked the sky before I was about to go to bed and saw half the sky illuminated by the northern lights,鈥� he said. 鈥淔ive minutes later I was in the truck with my photo gear and fellow photographer Carla Lewis.鈥�

The photographers were on their way to Boer Mountain to capture the lights from a higher altitude. However, they decided to make a quick stop at the south end of the 亚洲天堂 Lake bridge and take some photos in case the brilliant display did not last. As it turns out, they made the right call because, by the time they arrived at Boer Mountain, the scope and intensity of the northern lights had faded.

鈥淎lthough we did get a few cool shots [at Boer Mountain], they paled in comparison to the ones from the bridge,鈥� said Sakiyama. 鈥淭he hardest part of photographing the northern lights is their unpredictable nature; luck has a lot to do with it.鈥�

Then next night, on Aug. 17, the photographers tried their luck again and hiked over an hour up Hudson Bay Mountain in Smithers and waited for hours for the northern lights to show up. But they never did.

鈥淲e hiked in pitch black over the rocky, uneven alpine terrain; wind whipping and temperature dropping,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t was fun and we saw a lynx, but we were disappointed that we didn't capture the epic shots we had envisioned.鈥�

Dayna Vettese, Meteorologist for the Weather Network, explained that a strong geomagnetic storm caused the frequent occurrences of northern lights over the last couple of weeks.

鈥淎 coronal mass ejection (CME) is a massive burst of gas and magnetic field that comes out of the sun and is directed toward earth,鈥� she explained. 鈥淲hen that CME hits earth鈥檚 magnetic fields, we get the aurora borealis or northern lights.鈥�

The reason why people in the Lakes District were able to see the phenomenon more clearly was because of the cloudless skies over the last couple of weeks.

Although good weather conditions are necessary for people to see the northern lights, Vetesse explained that weather conditions and northern lights are completely independent of each other. In fact, northern lights can occur at any time throughout the year.

鈥淲e tend to see a lot more in the winter months because the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, so we get more night time hours in the winter,鈥� she said.

Vettese said the sun is now going into a 鈥渜uiet period,鈥� so there is not much potential for northern lights over the next couple of weeks. A real time monitoring of sun activity can be seen at www.aurorawatch.ca