Northern Lights and so much more

By Beth J. Harpaz

AP Travel Editor

updated 9:34 a.m. ET Dec. 26, 2008

FAIRBANKS, Alaska - Last winter, my 10-year-old son and I headed to a destination that had friends and family wondering if we'd lost our minds.

We went to Fairbanks. In February.

We hoped to see the Northern Lights, though we knew there were no guarantees. If you stay three nights in the area, locals say you have a 75 percent likelihood of witnessing the phenomenon, but cloud cover or snow falling can ruin your chances. We got lucky, and saw them twice on a three-night stay.

But while we went to see the aurora borealis, we ended up doing so much more. In Fairbanks, we visited an ice park, saw ice sculptures and toured the Museum of the North. At Chena Hot Springs Resort, about 60 miles from Fairbanks, we went dogsledding and snowmobiling, soaked in an outdoor hot tub surrounded by snow, and visited an ice museum and geothermal energy plant.

We don't get much snow in New York City, where we live, so the trip also cured our snow deficit. My son Nathaniel loved rolling down snowy hills and climbing up snowpacked river banks.

We'd been to Alaska once before — like most tourists, in the summer. We fell in love with the landscape and wildlife, and became obsessed with everything about the state. We read books, talked endlessly about our trip (him in school, me at work), showed off our photos, and quizzed anyone we met who'd been there.

Only about 250,000 tourists venture to Alaska between October and April (compared to some 1.7 million summer visitors). But most winter tourists are like us — 75 percent are making their second trip to the state, according to the most recent data from the Alaska Visitor Statistics Program.

My husband and teenage son declined to accompany us, although they had been on the summer trip. Husband said he had to work; teenager headed to a warm beach with a friend's family. I wondered if they were right to take a pass when I checked the weather in Fairbanks a few weeks before our trip: Temperatures in early February had set record lows in the minus 40s and 50s.

We bought special gloves, socks and face protectors, borrowed ski outerwear from relatives, and hoped it would warm up. It did, with temps in the 20s and 30s — above zero. We were fine outside for hours at a time.

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We also experienced an unexpected cultural immersion. Charter flights from Tokyo bring thousands of Japanese visitors to Alaska each winter. Seeing the Northern Lights is “on their life list,” explained Chena spokeswoman Denise Ferree. It's also part of Japanese culture's “traditional reverence for and appreciation of the beauty of nature,” said Colin Lawrence, director of tourism for the Fairbanks Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Watching these Japanese visitors waiting outside in the snow, sometimes for hours, all bundled up, for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the aurora borealis, was inspiring. Like a lot of Americans, patience is not my strong suit. But my son and I shared the Japanese tourists' exclamations of joy when we spotted the Northern Lights.

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