The northern lights, aka aurora borealis, really lit up the foothills last night on Valentine's Day.

High River resident Sarah Lee snapped a picture by Emerson Lake, but she almost missed it.

"I was actually in my pyjamas in my car. I have this app that tells me when you know it's possible to see the aurora if the sky is clear and it was late I was going to bed, it was Valentine's Day, and my Valentines wasn't with me because he was on a work trip so I was like I'm just going to go to bed.

"And then my friend called and she was like 'Have you seen the auroras? I can see it out my back window' so I thought I better get out and go take a look, so I went towards Blackie... and just found a dark spot to look and I saw it in an arch, it was very pretty but mostly I could see it through a camera."

"I was thinking it's getting pretty late I'm going to head back home and just as I was going through town in High River it was just dancing in the sky all over... it didn't even need to be dark, like without the city lights so I was parked at Emerson Lake and it was just a beautiful show... between about 1 and 1:30 was when it was just dancing all over."

And falling on Valentine's Day it could've made a spectacular backdrop for someone proposing on the day of romance.