I Took The ‘Arctic Train’ To See The Northern Lights—Here’s How You Can Too

The polar lights. The merry dancers. The aurora borealis. Whatever you call the northern lights they remain an elusive and hard to find phenomena for most people.

Sure, they can occasionally appear in places as far south as the US-Canada border, the UK and Western Europe, but even then they are typically visible only to cameras rather than to the naked eye.

Whisper it, but even if you go to 65° north—the Arctic Circle—the Northern Lights can often be underwhelming. That’s because faint displays look like little more than white-ish clouds that gradually change shape.

Hardly life-changing, yet typical. However, if you get lucky and a geomagnetic storm rages above you it can be the sight of your life.

In short, you need to be in the right place at the right time. That demands patience and luck. Oh, and some incredibly warm gloves help a lot.

The best way to see the Northern Lights, therefore, is to go to the Arctic Circle and do something else entirely. You might get lucky. If you don’t it’s not going to ruin your trip.

So how about riding the best train journey in the world and skiing some of the world’s most northerly ski resorts?

That’s exactly what I did on a recent trip between Narvik in Norway and Abisko National Park in Sweden, finishing it off with a night train down to the Swedish capital, Stockholm to visit its incredible Vasa Museum—home to the world’s only preserved 17th century ship.

My ski and sky adventure started in newly Netflix-famous Narvik, Norway, which is a short flight from Oslo and lies at at 65 degrees north. It then involved a ride on the legendary Ofoten Line to a remote ski resort at Björkliden for a few days before a night train to Stockholm.

Narvik War Museum is excellent and worth a visit and, if it’s open, the Narvikfjellet ski area above the town has incredible views across the town and the fjord behind.

However, Narvik is not a good place to see the northern lights—it’s too light-polluted—though evening aurora-hunting tours are available to see aurora from the surrounding countryside.

The train leaves Narvik’s tiny yellow train station at in the late morning and mid-afternoon each day, calling at some of 13 remote train stations (one of them another ski resort at Riksgränsen) along the 30 miles/43 kilometers Ofotbanen/Ofoten Line extends between Narvik and Kiruna.

It’s been running since 1903 and mostly transports iron ore from the mines in Kiruna to Narvik—and then to the world.

On the brief journey—which cost about $30—there are deep fjords and high alpine vistas. I alighted at Björkliden in deep snow, hauling my luggage across a skidoo track to the warm and welcoming Hotell Fjället (about $190 per night in February to May ski season).

The views from the rooms are of a vast iced-up Torneträsk lake and, to one side, the iconic peaks of closeby Abisko National Park. By day about $50 buys a ski pass for the adjacent Fjällby ski resort, which is entertaining for a few hours at least.

However, is what I really came for was the northern lights. Although a storm raged on the first night, the next two had plenty of partly clear skies—and the aurora visited on one of the nights.

As luck would have it, I timed by visits between two incredible geomagnetic storms—one had just finished when I arrived and another started a few nights later. This is why it’s best to stay as long as you can—and though my three nights wasn’t really enough, it gave me a glimpse of what I came to see.

With plenty of darkness and even an observation station a short walk uphill, Björkliden proved good place to stay entertained—on both trains and on skis—while waiting for the aurora to show. And if you come between September and March and skies are clear, they probably will.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.