It was standing room only at Apostle Islands Booksellers on day two of the Dark Sky Star Bright Festival in Bayfield. The nine-day festival organized by the Bayfield Chamber of Commerce and Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore features more than 50 events tied to celebrating and preserving our precious night sky. During his bookstore appearance, Michael Laughing Fox Charette told stories, sang and performed with a variety of flutes and a drum to present “Dark Skies from the Asnishinaabe Perspective.” He is a Native American storyteller, poet, and member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

Charette told the story of the constellation we know as the Big Dipper, which in Ojibwe culture is known as Ojiig, the Fisher, (a carnivorous mammal native to North America.) Charette said the Ojiig the Fisher saw his brothers, the humans shivering in the cold, and together with several other animals, ripped a hole in the sky, which resulted in six months of summer and six months of winter.

Michael Laughing Fox Charette sings and plays the drum – Jon Okerstrom photo

During the question and answer session, Charette and Store Manager Kristin Sandstrom talked about the importance of the Northern Lights in the Ojibwe culture. Sandstrom said the book, The Forever Sky, “talks about how our ancestors are performing within the Northern Lights, if you’ve ever seen them actually dance, instead of just colors, it is a spiritual thing for sure. I also don’t think I could read this aloud, because I cry every time I read it. It’s really beautiful.”

Kristin Sandstrom talks about “The Forever Sky” – Jon Okerstrom photo

(Editor’s note: You can get the book at Apostle Islands Booksellers. You can also watch author Thomas Peacock, of the Fond du Lac Band, Lake Superior Chippewa, read the book in this video from the Minnesota Historical Society.)

Gerry Miller photo

Earlier in the day, the University of Minnesota – Duluth’s mobile planetarium and a night sky painting experience again drew crowds to Bayfield’s Lakeside Pavilion.

Bayfield Pavilion on a snowy Sunday – Jon Okerstrom photo

Over the course of two days, hundreds of adults and children stepped  inside the inflated planetarium to see see what’s happening in the night sky right now. The presenter used a planetarium projector to track the stars across the night sky, identifying many constellations in both the northern and southern sky and added colored overlays to show the people and animals the constellations represent.

Audience members take their seats in the planetarium – Jon Okerstrom photo

Ursa Major (The Great Bear) contains the Big Dipper and other stars that form the bear’s body and head – Jon Okerstrom photo

Krishna from Bloom Art Gallery also offered budding artists of all ages a chance to create free keepsake watercolor paintings of the night sky, inspired by the northern lights, constellations, and the moon. Both the planetarium and the guided painting experience proved to be very popular with festival goers.

Applying salt to a painting for dramatic effect – Jon Okerstrom photo

Cookie break time – Jeff Rennicke photo

Sunday night, Duluth astronomer Bob King presented an indoor program “Astronomy for Everyone” at the Lakeside Pavillion. King shared his passion for the night sky, taking the audience on a journey from “dust to us,” sharing the stories of how distant stars, planets and galaxies are formed to a look at our own solar system and to earth’s position in the “goldilocks zone,” where the temperature is not too hot, not too cold, but just right for liquid water – and life – to exist on the planet’s surface.

Astronomer Bob King describes the stars that make up a constellation – Jon Okerstrom photo

King said, “We are all here. We are all present. We all have the same cosmic origin… Some of you, maybe all of you have been out on a beautiful night and you’ve looked up and you’ve felt the enormity of the universe and especially when you see the Milky Way. And so sometimes you feel, or at least I feel – insignificant. And I love feeling insignificant… It makes you stop and realize that there is something much larger than you out there.”

He continued, “One of the great privileges of being a human being built of all of these elements, built of stars, is to look up into space and put the story together. We can give meaning to the universe. Humans build the story. We tell it. That is an enormous privilege and one of the beautiful things about being human. For all we know, we are the only ones who can tell it. We are super significant.”

“From dust to us,” says Duluth astronomer Bob King – Jon Okerstrom photo

King and Friends Executive Director Jeff Rennicke both talked about the importance of protecting the night sky. Rennicke said that if you have a neighbor with a bright outdoor light and want to know how to talk to them, you can learn how during a Dark Sky Star Bright presentation by Dark Sky Advocate and lighting expert Scott Lind, Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. at Honest Dog Books at 38 S 2nd Street. 

Other highlights for the upcoming week include the ongoing Dark Sky Art Display at Island Gateway Gallery & Gathering, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. through January 22nd.

Pizza and Photographers Night happens Tuesday night at 5 p.m. at Saint James Social at 200 Rittenhouse Avenue. Gather with local and regional dark-sky photographers as they share and display their celestial work—from shimmering auroras to winter constellations over Lake Superior. Enjoy an inspiring, come-as-you-are evening fueled by our house-made sourdough Neapolitan pizzas, available for purchase.

Wednesday features an inspiring Dark Sky Film and Q and A with the filmmakers at The Backstage. The movie, called Light Side Up, documents how some inventive photographers captured the northern lights from near the edge of space. Rennicke said, “I’m not going to tell you how it ends, but it’s pretty good!” The showing starts at 7 p..m.

On Thursday at 6:30 p.m., it’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, movie night at the Carnegie Library.

Friday night, night sky photographer Travis Novitsky will discuss his search for beauty and meaning in the dark skies and the making of his book “Spirits Dancing: The Night Sky, Indigenous Knowledge, and Living Connections to the Cosmos. His presentation starts at 7 p.m. at Honest Dog Books, 40 South Second Street. 

For the complete event guide visit the homepage of our website. Or click here for a chronological list of events. Friends of the Apostle Islands is pleased to be part of this wonderful festival, which dovetails with our ongoing Starry Skies Iniative which seeks to protect night sky resources in and around the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Increasing public awareness and a potential certification for the Apostle Islands as an International Dark Sky Park through Dark Sky International are part of the plan.