Into the Night: Skiing Lapland’s Backcountry to Chase the Northern Lights

We move like a small constellation across the snow—one headlamp after another—each beam cutting a white ribbon through the black of an Arctic forest. Breath fogs in the beam, a soft hiss beneath skin-tight hoods. The skis are wider than the ones you’d take to groomed runs; they are designed to float, to make you a light-footed visitor in a deep, sleeping landscape. Above the pines, the sky keeps its own counsel. When the aurora wakes it does so slowly, as if testing the horizon: a pale green smear that flexes and then unfurls into a vaulted curtain. The trees beneath are patient spectators, their branches bowed by snow, catching ribbons of light and reflecting an impossible, cool palette back at us.