The images were taken Feb. 6 around 10:30 p.m. (Corey Allan/Facebook)

By Derek Cornet

northern lights

Aurora borealis lights up the sky near La Ronge

Feb 8, 2021 | 5:00 PM

The speculator dance of the northern lights is a phenomenon some people wait their whole lives to see.

That’s one of the reasons La Ronge EMS primary care paramedic Shawn Wollmann believes his photos of the aurora borealis is spreading quickly on social media. In less than two days, a Facebook post featuring the images has received approximately 6,000 reacts and more than 15,000 shares.

The photos were taken Feb. 6 at approximately 10:30 p.m. near Bigstone Lake, which is only few kilometres from La Ronge.

“I have an aurora app that kind of forecasts when the northern lights are going to be out, and the strength and quality of them,” Wollmann said. “It was exceptionally cold that night. I think we had -40 C. Usually, the colder the night seems to be the brighter the lights.”

Wollmann was actually working Saturday night when he asked his supervisor if he could borrow an ambulance to capture the photos. His supervisor was supportive, so he and his colleague Justice Horner travelled to Bigstone Landing to take them.

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Wollmann, who calls himself a photography enthusiast, was surprised by how well the imaged turned out. He said he can’t believe the response they’ve had on social media.

Shawn Wollmann and his fellow colleague Justice Horner. (Corey Allan/Facebook)

“Just the beauty of the northern lights themselves [is] kind of something not a lot of people get to see and it’s something that’s pretty exclusive to living in the North,” he said, adding he’s originally from Bruno, Sask. “I could see them from home back then occasionally, but they were never as amazing as what they are up here. They are on a whole brighter scale up here, just with the reduced light pollution and being remotely in the North.”

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derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno