There were two grade school subjects in the late 1950s and early 1960s that I remember fondly—clouds and Lapland. There seems to be little association between the two, and it seems odd today that they were part of the curriculum at all. Yet they provided ample encouragement. I was a young cloudspotter, bored in school, but quickly able to grasp Cumulus (cotton candy clouds), my first Linnean Latin name, years before I learned Quercus(oak).

The “simple and picturesque culture” of snowy Lapland, with romanticized stories of “Northern Peoples,” was appealing, also. The nomadic Sámi people lived in parts of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia—home to reindeer and Santa Claus. That was a big deal. Naughty or nice was a dividing line between the Western World and Russia during the Cold War. (And it appears to be so again.) The fastest route between the U.S. and Russia was over the North Pole. 

Russia ran hot when I was a little boy. Each school day began with the Pledge of Allegiance. Staring out the window toward darkening Cumulonimbus thunderclouds kept my mind off nuclear annihilation.

“I have always loved looking at clouds. Nothing in nature rivals their variety and drama; nothing matches their sublime beauty.” These are Gavin Pretor-Pinney’s  first words in his introduction of his best-selling Cloudspotters’s Guide: The Science, History and Culture of Clouds.

Dog sleds, ICEHOTEL and Northern Lights

Fifteen years ago, in early February, I spent four mostly cloudy days in Jukkasjärvi Sweden, 125 miles inside the Arctic Circle, with friends Nick and Phil. Our goal was dogsledding and snowmobiling by day and the Northern Lights after dark. We were bundled up the entire time in multi-layers, even though temperatures were unseasonably warm, seldom going below 0 F (-18 C).

(L-R) Nick and Phil near the ICEHOTEL

We spent one night in the ICEHOTEL inside sleeping bags with four layers of clothing. No one would want to spend two nights on a huge slab of ice on top of a mattress covered in a reindeer skin. There were modern accommodations next door.

(L-R) Phil and Nick dogsledding inside the arctic circle in 2011

Sámi people hunted, fished, and foraged for lingonberries, cloudberries, and crowberries. The fruit of the versatile, circumboreal lingonberry (Vacciniun vitis-idaea) took us from moose to mousse. Days were short and nights were long.

We toughed it out on an arctic diet of warm lingonberry juice at breakfast that veered toward lingonberry-vodka cocktails in frozen tumblers made of “clear ice from the Torne River” in the evening. Grilled moose, followed for dinner, smothered in lingonberry preserves, and we finished with chocolate mousse topped with lingonberry compote.

We never saw the Northern lights. “You should have been here late last night,” was the refrain on the few nights that weren’t cloud covered.

Against the odds

On November 11th, I was in Louisville and a got a text from Salvisa. Mike Rogers, our friend and neighbor, texted and asked if I was watching the Northern Lights. I thought he was kidding. His photos were beautiful. I rushed outside, but the Louisville ambient light was too bright. Rose and I rushed out to the car and drove toward darkness across the Ohio River in rural Indiana. We were shut out.

Northern Lights in Salvisa, Kentucky on November 11, 2025. Mike Rogers photos

Northern Lights with Cumulus humulis cloudlets after dark

Growing lingonberries in Kentucky

While the odds of Northern lights in Kentucky anytime soon are slim, I am taking a longshot on trying to grow a lingonberry in Salvisa. I’ve just ordered seeds from the best seed company in the world (I’m a little biased)– Jelitto Perennial Seeds. Mike Rogers grows beautiful blueberries, a lingonberry cousin. Kentucky’s warm and humid summers don’t come close to Lapland’s cool summers or their nutrient poor acidic soils, and open conifer forests. We can fulfill cold winters but fall short in every other department.

Why bother?

Why not!

Lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea)

Promoting lingonberry seeds in the ICEBAR

As remote as my chances are, I could be the first on the block to successfully grow lingonberries, and no one would care.

Days are growing longer and skies are spotted with clouds.