Summers in Saskatoon are short and warm as opposed to its long, bitterly cold winters. Six summers ago when I was visiting the largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan in July of 2019, it was one of the sunniest times of the year.
In Saskatoon, the air was thick not just with warmth of sunny days, but with the intellectual hum of over 900 scientists and scholars. They had gathered for the 1st International Wheat Congress (IWC), a symphony of genetics, breeding, and trade. Situated in the heart of Canada’s breadbasket, Saskatoon was the perfect host for a gathering of this magnitude.
I was there as one of ten international journalists, a witness to the heavy discourse of feeding a hungry world. Yet, after days of peering into the microscopic details of wheat, I found myself yearning for the infinite.
I remember clearly the moment the walls of the congress seemed to close in. It was my friend Michael Robin, a science writer of high repute, who offered the antidote: he proposed a midnight stargazing expedition. I jumped at the invitation.
Around midnight on a late July night, Robin picked up our small group—Amit, Amin, Tan, and me—and drove 16 kilometers south of the city to Cranberry Flats. This scenic conservation area along the South Saskatchewan River is a favorite for daytime hikers, but we were there for the celestial show. We hoped for a clear sky and, if luck was on our side, a glimpse of the Northern Lights (aurora borealis).
Amit Bhattacharya, a journalist friend from India, was the astrophotographer among us who would always carry his gadgets for navigating the night skies and capturing images wherever he goes on travel. It was the farthest north that he travelled up until then. By the time we were still settling down deep inside the Cranberry Flats reserve by the river South Saskatchewan, acclimatizing ourselves with the thrill of sighting glittering stars up close in clear sky, Amit had got his telescope, night vision lights and camera gears set up.
Far from the ‘light pollution’ of the city, the galaxy revealed itself with surreal clarity. From our vantage point on the riverbank, amidst the rustling shrubs, the sky looked like a vast canvas exploding with silent color.
Robin has a fairly good knowledge of stars and he can identify them in the night sky. I was benefiting from his knowledge of constellations. Pointing toward a specific patch of the Saskatoon sky, he identified the Big Dipper—the famous asterism within the Ursa Major constellation. Once he pointed out the seven bright stars forming that iconic ladle shape, it became impossible to miss.
Then he indicated to something very bright, not twinkling, and cream-colored and told me “Do you know – what’s that? That’s planet Jupiter.” It can be identified by its steady, intense glow, often located near the Moon or prominent constellation like Gemini.
Looking at the clear sky, far away from the civic light pollutions, I indicated to a bright star recognizing that as ‘North Star’ but still looked at Robin for validation. He moved his head in affirmation. Ancient mariners used Polaris as a fixed point for navigation. Because it sits almost directly above the Earth’s North Pole, Polaris remains stationary while the rest of the cosmos appears to rotate around it, a reliable guide.
There was not much expectation of having a full glimpse of the Northern Lights from the Cranberry Flats particularly during the month of July but still the explosion of auras and gazing all those stars and planets so bright and close (it appeared so) in the dark night sky was quite an experience. The best seasons to gaze at the Northern Lights from Cranberry Flats are actually during the seasons of autumn (September to October) and spring (February to April).
The Northern Lights, also known as the aurora borealis, are a natural light display in the Earth's sky, primarily seen in high-latitude regions around the Arctic. They appear as shimmering, colorful curtains or waves of light that "dance" across the night sky. The lights are caused by a chain reaction between the Sun and Earth's atmospheres.
Cranberry Flats Conservation Area is, indeed, a beautiful spot for stargazing due to its distance from city lights; it offers a much clearer view of the cosmos and the Northern Lights than the city.
The journey to the South Saskatchewan riverside was also memorable. On the way, the car's headlights caught deer leaping out of the wood. Sighting of a few animals and a range of shrubs and plants at dead of the night was a bonus.
I heard of its other common residents such as foxes, squirrels, deer, coyotes, beavers and rabbits but amidst the darkness of the wee small hours, I could only manage to see a few deer moving quickly with extreme caution from one bushy part of the Flats to the other, likely foraging for browse.
Cranberry Flats named after the highbush cranberry, which is native to the river flats, features a mix of sandy riverbank, native prairie, and forest ecosystems that support a diverse range of species. There are Saskatoon berries, juniper berries, and wolf-willow alongside highbush cranberries. Highbush cranberries is an ornamental shrub native to North America, known for its edible, tart, red berries (drupes) used in jellies, sauces, and syrups.
Wildflowers such as Prairie Smoke, Wild Bergamot, and the rare Yellow Lady's Slipper orchid are most commonly sighted at the Cranberry Flats. One can find willow, aspen and cottonwood trees while negotiating native prairie grasslands and long grasses along the Flats trail towards the sandy bank of South Saskatchewan River.
By the time we returned to our hotel, dawn was breaking. The experience remained etched in memory, acting as a bridge to childhood in rural Bangladesh. It reminded me of my childhood exposures to the twinkling stars when we used to gaze stars on dark sky from the open of spacious courtyards during our yearend vacation to the village home.
Stargazing in rural Bangladesh before the arrival of widespread electricity was less of a planned hobby and more of a natural, nightly immersion. It was an era of ‘true’ dark, not polluted by electric lights but illuminated by the lights emitted by millions of fireflies and dim, flickering amber light of kerosene-lit lamps.
The transition from dusk to night was like a slow, rhythmic descent into a different world where the sky was a mystery world dotted with stars and constellations named after mythical figures.
In that profound darkness, the sky didn't look like a distant ceiling, rather a sparkling canopy right over our young heads. Moon would peek through our backyard bamboo grove.
On the banks of the South Saskatchewan River, thousands of miles from that village courtyard, the stars are the same universal treasure, connecting a childhood in the East to a midnight expedition in the West.