Solar Minimum?
In the 11 year solar cycle you get 6-8 years of quiet with few auroral outbursts. If that happens to have coincided with your "formative years" it might explain things.
Solar minima occurred in ~2000, 1989, 1978, 1967, 1956...
Either that, or you were too far north for for good ones (the geomagnetic pole is tilted towards Canada)