By Nancy Kirkpatrick Wright
Have you seen any sun dogs recently? Sun dogs or mock suns are rainbow-like spots of light and color which appear about 22 degrees to the left or right of the sun on days when whispy, cirrus clouds float near the sun at sun set or sun rise. Ice crystals, too light to fall to the ground, work like prisms, reflecting and refracting the sunlight to produce glowing halos or arches of color. When we see them, we usually experience small spasms of delight and a feeling of serendipity, along with a desire to share the experience with someone.
Traditionally, they foretold weather changes or rain, the brighter the halo, the heavier the showers. Among the Native American Blackfeet people, sun dogs were thought to be warning of approaching danger. The next time you see one, however, you may think of Lillian Whilhelm Smith.
Lillian Wilhelm Smith was a noted Southwestern artist, an illustrator of one of Zane Grey's novels and other books, and an acclaimed watercolorist. Before moving to Prescott in 1960, she and her husband hosted a guest lodge near their trading post at Tuba City. Her life story reads like an adventure novel, full of unusual and interesting experiences, including seeing a very rare apparition of a most unusual array of halos and sun dogs.
At about three o'clock, Monday afternoon, December 27, 1926, Mrs. Smith, along with a few other lucky people, witnessed this rare phenomenon near Tuba City. Mrs. Smith quickly sketched a picture of it and then called Lowell Observatory to learn more about it.
A newspaper clipping from the Coconino Sun, in the Lillian Wilhelm Smith file at Sharlot Hall Museum, describes the event: "Examination of many volumes from Lowell observatory revealed that this phenomenon, while it has been recorded at times, is seldom seen in southern latitudes and is due to the passage of light through ice crystals in the air. The appearance of halos and mock suns most similar to the one seen from Tuba are recorded as seen from Rome in 1630, from Danzig on February 20, 1661, and from Petrograd, Russia, on July 18, 1794. Both the 22 degree and the 46 degree halos appeared in the one seen from Tuba and the outside halo being more brilliant than the inside one was an unusual feature. Also the remarkable brilliance and vivid coloring of the inverted are [one] tangent to the outside halo added to the interest and beauty of this rare happening. . . . All the warm colors of the rainbow were present in these halos, red, orange and yellow, the red appearing on the inside, the colors fading to white and not so sharply defined on the inside."
Those early displays took place long before the invention of the camera, of course. But did anyone take a photograph of the 1926, Tuba City apparition? Don't you wonder how many other such phenomena have been seen, but not recorded?
The accompanying copy of Mrs. Smith's drawing is a dramatic and apparently accurate sketch showing three mock suns, and the three halos. It is similar to the sketch made by the Danish astronomer, Hevelius, of the halo displays he saw in 1661, in Gdansk (Danzig).. He saw several mock suns and titled his drawing, "Seven Suns." The English explorer Sir William Parry recorded a similar sighting on his voyage to find the Northwest Passage in 1820. His sketch is also similar to Mrs. Smith's.
Simple sun halos or sun dogs occur so often that a practiced observer should see one every three or four days. They are formed by randomly scattered and turning hexagonal (six-sided) crystals shaped like flat plates, turning randomly like leaves floating to the ground. The more unusual halos occur when pencil-shaped hexagonal crystals refract the sun's light as they move about.
Talk about serendipity. An accomplished artist, Lillian Wilhelm Smith was the right person at the right time, at the right place, to sketch the intricate cluster of sun dogs and halos which had appeared so surprisingly in the western sky.
So, as the Star Hustler says, "Keep looking up." And not just at night. You just might see a sun dog, or even a super-display of mock suns like those seen from Tuba City in 1926.
Nancy Kirkpatrick Wright, Retired Librarian from Yavapai College, is active in Prescott Art Docents and Sharlot Hall Museum. Her research these days usually combines her interests in art, Southwestern history, and pioneer women.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (po0626pi). Reuse only by permission.
Lillian Smith is shown here creating her painting "Sunshine on the Sage" near Kayenta, Arizona. Smith lived in the Four Corners area for many years and eventually settled in Prescott in 1960. She spotted an elaborate halo around the sun in December 1926.
From the Lillian Smith Vertical File: We are fortunate that Lillian W. Smith, a noted Southwestern Artist, had spotted one of these rare celestial displays of the sun, its three mock suns, and three halos. Simple halos and sun dogs can occur about every three or four days. This drawing first appeared in the Coconino Sun in January of 1927.