Witnessing the dazzling greens and purples light up the northern night sky is on many a bucket list, but for those living with colour-blindness, the northern lights aren’t much of a spectacle.
Recently, Travel Yukon teamed up with EnChroma, a producer of glasses for people with colour-blindness and low vision, to help make the northern lights more accessible. People with colour-blindness can only see an estimated 10 per cent of colours, but EnChroma lenses make colours more visible. By combining colour perception neuroscience, optical dyes, lens material innovations and manufacturing techniques, they're able to create lenses that stimulate the brain's ability to process colours.
EnChroma sells indoor and outdoor colour blind glasses in a range of different styles, for children and adults, but with each pair costing upwards of $400, not everyone can afford them.
Now, 10 different tourism operators in the Yukon and the Yukon Visitors Information Centre have EnChroma glasses that visitors can borrow to experience the northern lights in all their colourful glory. We’re not crying, you’re crying.
