Made 1800 kilometre round trip to see northern lights – saw them from Fjälkinge Backe instead

Joakim Sandgren and his family are just back home in Fjälklinge after a trip to Kiruna. Up north Joakim could at last experience something he'd wanted to see for a long time – the northern lights.

– I'd wanted to see them for a long time, about twenty years or so. We didn't go all the way to Kiruna just to see the northern lights, of course, but we got round to doing it in any case.

Maybe it wasn't the most spectacular display to be seen, they didn't show on his dog-sled tour on Torne älv or over the mountains. Instead Joakim was able to see the celestial phenomenon through a bus window on his way to Boden.

– At last we were able to see a little bit of the northern lights. It was much stronger than yesterday's (Friday evening's) and I came home very pleased to be able to tick it off from my bucket list. It was almost enough to make you religious.

Since Joakim follows a number of sites on internet where subjects such as solar winds and similar phenomena are discussed, he was not altogether unprepared for the possibility of being able to observe the northern lights at home in Fjälkinge too.

– It's really quite ironic, he says, as he'd never before seen the lights he'd been wanting to see for such a long time other than a week or so earlier in Kiruna.

But he had a lot to do at home on Friday evening, and almost missed the heavenly display.

– I realised it half an hour before midnight. In Fjälkinge itself there is a lot of light pollution, so I went up the hill.