Some 20 or so years ago Margreet was seated “shotgun” as we traversed the prairie en route to the small town where I ran a weekly newspaper. As we edged along on the brutally cold winter afternoon with the heater at full blast, I was becoming rather self conscious since it seemed my Dutch friend was intent at staring at me. Finally in complete self consciousness I asked, “So what’s up?” as I brushed imaginary crumbs off my down vest.

Margreet smiled in apology. “I’ve just never seen anything quite like that,” she said, bending forward to point past me and off to the southwest. It was then that I noticed the sundog hanging in the sky. After years of winter prairie living, sundogs seemed to hang in winter skies like pictures on a living room wall. You took them for granted knowing they’re likely there, and that you can look up in appreciation when reminded.

A late afternoon sundog appears above an granite outcrop at the Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge.

After a short, layman’s explanation, I asked if I should pull over so she could some photos. If I would have stated something like, “Oh, sundogs are simply hexagonal ice crystals suspended in cirrostratus clouds that refract sunlight to create a halo effect. Sometimes they’re called an icebow, nimbus, or gloriole” I might have lost the magic of the moment for Margreet.

Margreet is an artist and photographer, as well as a practitioner of wholistic wellness practices for women back in her hometown north and west of Amsterdam. She quickly reached into her travel bag for her camera and we pulled off onto the shoulder of the highway where she proceeded to burn a roll of film … some with her in the foreground, and a few of her host. A recent visit to her home in Holland indicated how impressed she was of the sundog, for an old print of it was framed and still on display.

Taken during a brutal, windy day when the Parhelic Circle cuts through the snow.

Sundogs are indeed a phenomenon of brutal, icy skies. The previous and somewhat scientific explanation is what creates these icy halos which can form what are called “Parhelic Circles” of which we rarely see the bottom third. These circles occur when “sun” pillars reach high into the sky above the sun. On the “right days” when it all comes together you have a rather special and magical sight.

Sundogs are most visible when the sun is near a horizon either early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Apparently there is no historical reference on why the name, although according to various sources the name “sundog” has existed in language since the early 1600s.

A left arc of the sundog on the prairie near my Listening Stone farm.

Here in the North Country we may be over our limit of sundogs for this winter. At dawn you’ll first see the tip of the sun, then to the side rainbow-ish arcs begin to emerge to foretell of a day of frigid, Arctic temperatures. Hours later those arcs are the first to disappear, then the sun lowers below the horizon. Hopefully we will have found warmth within those bookends of time.

Strangely I am now captive of their existence. This winter alone I suspect nearly a dozen sundogs have begun their rise in the Eastern sky across from my Listening Stones prairie. Some mornings they appear as rainbow colored arcs complete with vivid colors, while on other mornings they are nearly as bright as the blinding sun. On some mornings sun pillars rise into the sky above the sun to form that apex of a Parhelic Circle. Years ago I photographed such a Circle somehow poking through a prairie blizzard.

A snow crusted coneflower head against a sundog arc here at the farm taken on a day when I needed to seek a different image of a sundog.

Of late I have greeted morning visitors of a social media site with images of the numerous sundogs prompting one friend to ask if my next exhibit would be titled “Being Haunted by Sundogs.” After another such posting I “promised” I was done picturing them, yet a few days later I posted yet another image (now three sundogs ago) when another friend chided me. “I thought you were done with sundogs,” she wrote, quite possibly in jest. Maybe they’re harder to give up than smoking.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m simply overwhelmed by the dearth of winter color, of all the typical grayness or snow-blown whiteouts. Yet there are times when the magic of winter provides immense joy. Capturing the color of a sunrise or sunset in ice formations, or the ambient colors painted on snow dunes created by prairie winds can do that. So does the absolute freshness of a world turned frosty white with the crystals of a hoarfrost. Those rainbow colors of a sundog affects me just as deeply.

At a recent dawn, a sun pillar rises into the sky above the sun to form the apex of a Parhelic Circle. This was on the edge of my home prairie.

So, yes, I suppose I am haunted by sundogs in much the same way Norman Maclean was haunted by trout stream waters. And for which I can offer no apology