The Northern Lights Legacy

Legendary Varieties

Northern Lights is easily one of the most popular varieties of cannabis in the world. 

Initially bred in the Seattle area of Washington state by a small group of growers in the 1970s, it quickly turned into an internationally renowned variety after a gentleman nicknamed “Seattle Greg” sent samples of his seed collection to a newly formed seed company called The Seed Bank of Holland, founded by a gentleman named Nevil. 

For a long time it was hard to get the true story about the origin of Northern Lights due to the secrecy within the community, because cultivators of cannabis were being hunted in the war on drugs. I had often asked around and was told that the gentleman’s name was Greg, but not much else. Shortly after Nevil passed away, I wrote an article titled “Legacy of a Legend” about Nevil and his seed bank. Shortly after that, I noticed a comment on one of my social media posts about the article from a gentleman named Greg, giving credit to Nevil for spreading the Northern Lights genetics around. I had to inquire if this was the original Greg who first sent the Northern Lights seeds to Nevil in 1984, and indeed it was. 

“Seattle Greg” is a Marine and Vietnam veteran who served from 1965 to 1969, and in country from 1966 to 1967. After he returned home to Seattle, he started cultivating cannabis. Upon returning home Greg became a student at the University of Washington, and even though he is in his 70s today, he is still actively studying botany and the new technologies around the cultivation of cannabis. 

Greg first started smoking cannabis while he was in Vietnam and took a liking to it. In a recent two-and-a-half hours long conversation we had, I got to ask him about the history and genetics surrounding this legendary variety. 

In the mid-70s, Greg discovered a book titled How to Grow Marijuana Indoors Under Lights, with the author’s name given as Murphy Stevens. The book is absolutely one of the most advanced cultivation books to come out of the 1970s, and it includes information about enhancing growth using CO2, de-humidification, proper ventilation, carefully monitoring the resin production before harvest, and also the technique of making cuttings and keeping mother plants. The book even included a catalog in the back of the book that sold hydroponic cultivation equipment from a Seattle shop called the Indoor Sun Shoppe. 

Being the passionate student of cannabis that he was, Greg made his way to the local hydroponic shop and befriended the owner and author, Steve Murphy. As the years passed and their trust of one another grew, sometime around 1979, Steve gave Greg four seeds of an Afghan variety that he referred to as “Purest Indica,” and that became the initial seeds that would go on to become the parents of the Northern Lights variety. Greg said that it could be easily considered the Northern Lights #1. 

 

Northern Lights #2 was created by combining Purest Indica with other Afghan genetics that they had collected from Oregon and California. Greg mentioned that it was their first attempt at making another variety using Purest Indica and was always one of his favorites. He said that they would smoke the NL#2 and sell the NL#5 because he liked the sedative effects of the pure Afghan. 

One of the most refreshing elements of my conversation with Greg was the overall feeling of honesty and sincerity. He admitted he was not certain about certain genetics because they had no way of knowing the true origin. They only knew what they were told, and he could never really be sure of the accuracy of what he was told. 

Which brings me to Northern Lights #5, Greg told me that a gentleman named Herbie who worked at Steve’s hydroponic shop bred the Purest Indica with a supposedly Hawaiian variety that Greg thinks was really from Northern Mexico — but he reminded me that we can never be too sure about where it really came from.

When I asked him about the numbering system of Northern Lights #1 through #11, he told me that he made that up just before he sent the seeds to Nevil, along with the name “Northern Lites,” telling me that to him it meant that the plants were grown and bred up North under “lites,” and that the spelling got changed by Nevil after it arrived in the Netherlands. 

The numbering system was #1 through #11, with #1 being the most Afghan and “Indica” as they called it back then, and the varieties became more tropical/equatorial, or “sativa” as the numbers went up. Unfortunately Greg did not remember all of the particular crosses because he did not make all of them. The Northern Lights seeds that Greg sent to Nevil and which became famous was a collection of various crosses that Greg collected from his group of friends over the years that they had been breeding and sharing with one another. 

Initially the relationship between Greg and Nevil started off smooth, with Greg gifting the first set of NL seeds to Nevil and then selling him the second set of seeds.

Unfortunately, some time in 1986, Greg reported that Nevil tried to go behind his back and buy the NL seeds from a different guy and that action got Nevil cut off from the source of Northern Lights seeds, but that did not slow down Nevil because he just started to knock off the varieties and breed them with various plants. 

Greg also reported to me that he did not send Northern Lights #1, the Purest Indica that he originally got from Steve Murphy to Nevil. Instead Nevil “did what he wanted to” with the numbers and changed the history to suit his own stories. Greg told me at some point he did send a NL#5 cutting to Nevil, but the #2 through #11 initially went to Nevil as seed varieties. 

Unfortunately through various busts and Operation Green Merchant, the original varieties of Northern Lights seeds were all but lost. But as fate would have it, one of Greg’s relatives passed away and in an old freezer his family found a collection of some of his old seeds from the early ’80s including Purest Indica, Northern Lights #2, and NL#5. 

About a year ago, Greg sent me some of these old seeds so that I could do some germination testing and give him feedback on the viability of the genetics after all those years in storage. I was extremely surprised to have gotten relatively decent germination rates and very vigorous plants. As a collector of old books about cannabis cultivation, I have copies of the Murphy Stevens grow books and I was astounded at the similarity to the Purest Indica of the seed plants given to me by Greg and the photos in the book — they look practically identical. 

The Northern Lights #2 has an extremely earthy and gassy aroma that reminds me of Chemdog and OG Kush but a bit more musky. I have no doubt that it is part of the parental genetics of those classic clone-only cultivars. 

 

Northern Lights #5 is an amazing combination of genetics that is extremely pleasurable to smoke. The high is not as heavy as the #2 and the scent is quite a bit more tropical. As a collector of old genetics it feels like a dream come true to have not only met one of my heroes in the folklore cannabis cultivation, but to also be able to grow and experience these genetics myself directly from the man who made them famous by sending them to Nevil. 

Greg is now in his ‘70s and has long ago retired to an island paradise to live out his golden years. If you get the chance to grow some of these authentic Northern Lights genetics, I highly recommend that you do, they are literally what legends are made of. 

 

 

As published in:
Grow Magazine, Vol.6 Issue3
September 2021