By Dan Hicks

Fort Steele is shown aglow in its natural nocturnal grandeur – brightly radiating over a haunted barn and windmill, our spectacular summer Milky Way is rivaled by a fiery Perseid fireball.

With our peak Perseid Meteor Shower night happening on the night of August 12 (Tuesday), and later in the month, proximal to our moonless night of the new moon night on August 22 – when all other seven planets will rise consecutively through the night, I have formally proposed to the Cranbrook Archives, Museum & Landmark Society (CAMAL – Cranbrook History Centre and Fort Steele Heritage Town) that – for free – it avail East Kootenay residents the opportunity of beholding these meteors and planets – together with our summertime Milky Way at Fort Steele.

For practical purposes, because these night sky encounters would necessarily be weather-contingent e-mail alert events, the invitees would primarily consist of members of CAMAL itself and the starry sky component of the Rocky Mountain Naturalists.

In my proposal, the later more formalized new moon proximal event would be entitled “An August Night Under Fort Steele Stars” (passes issued), but an August 12 “Fort Steele Perseidal Appreciation Party” would be a late afternoon scramble-alert (upon final confirmation of a clear sky forecast) for a late evening meteoric engagement lasting from 21:30 to midnight, a four-day old waning gibbous moon would rise over the Rockies to begin dominating the night sky by 23:00.

Below: August 2025 ecliptic illustration (below). Skyandtelescope.org All seven of our other planets appear.

Lead image: Fort Steele fondly reimagined upon a starry August night in a composite photo-illustration of four separate images. A stealthy flying saucer (left) – a genuine UAP – Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon – is surreptitiously surveilling the scene. Images submitted

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