Also called the Northern Lights. What a great sighting. I grew up near Chicago, not quite far enough North.
Aboard ship, crossing the Pacific eastward (they'd flown me over to catch the ship in the Philippines) I always wanted to see Saint Elmo's Fire, which is some kind of atmospheric circumstance that makes the spars and lines on a ship glow with a pale aura, but I never saw that, and I had to wait a few years into civilian life to see whales, and I saw them in the Atlantic. Melville's novel Moby Dick has both whales and St. Elmo's Fire.
I've seen an eclipse or two, but never a total eclipse of the sun, which moves a line of shadow and darkness across the land and is often a pretty strong emotional experience for viewers.