We are almost to the Arctic Circle. Not quite, but close enough we can “taste it.” The Arctic Circle and its companion the Antarctic Circle are the dotted lines on the map that mark the furthest from the pole you can get and still experience the phenomenon called “the midnight sun.”
We are in Fairbanks Alaska just in time for their Summer Solstice Festival. We walked around their street fair for a while, watched the kayak demonstrations on the Chena River and listened to several bands performing Jazz, Hiphop and Big Band Swing. Remember, this is the longest day of the year. Sunset for Fairbanks was 12:45 a.m. and sunrise was two hours and fifteen minutes later at 3:00 a.m.
About 10:00 p.m. we all lay down and took a nap, it was broad daylight. We rousted ourselves out at 11:30 and drove about ten miles to the top of 2,400 ft Ester Dome and amid all of the radio, TV and microwave towers we watched the sunset. That extra little boost of elevation gave us two things. First we had a view all around the horizon and second we could still see the sun after the local sunset.
In this location, similar to what you would see another 200 rough dirty miles to the north at the Arctic Circle, we saw the sun gliding horizontally along the horizon to the north of us. Compare this with the same sunset say at Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast. (O.K. I know that is an oxymoron, using sun and Oregon Coast in the same sentence, just bear with me, we really have seen the sunset on the Pacific Ocean in Lincoln City, Oregon.) This time of year the sun sets more or less vertically into the sea almost due west of you at Lincoln City. In Fairbanks the sun crosses to the south of us at one pm, and barely getting to 48 degrees above the horizon. (Note that because of daylight savings time the sun is an hour late for “local noon.”) By 6 pm the sun has moved into the west and is still hanging well above the horizon, (27 degrees). The Sun dips below the horizon just after midnight and at 1 am is hanging about 2 degrees below the horizon and it is due north of us. In Lincoln City at this time the sun would be almost 20 degrees below the northern horizon and we would be able to see things like the Milky Way. In Fairbanks you see the people and the buildings and the cars and everyone still partying at the street fair. It never gets dark.
It really is strange adapting to the perpetual daylight. We are loosing all sense of time here. Since the sun never gets very high in the sky, you don’t get a sense of high noon. It either feels like a perpetual mid morning or mid afternoon depending on how tired you are getting. I like the local weather forecast. For last night it read; “mostly sunny with light winds, low about 55 degrees.”
By the way, Jack spent a winter of his youth here in Fairbanks being a Diesel mechanic. He has been able to help us imagine what it is like at 70 below zero on the day of the winter solstice when the sun barely peeps above the horizon for a couple hours around noon.
We are all enjoying ourselves. We will spend a couple more days here in Fairbanks. We are staying at the Elks Lodge, just a short walk to downtown Fairbanks and right on the banks of the beautiful Chena River. Next we will travel to Denali National Park for some more wild adventures.
Goodbye from the far north, Gary, Judy, Sonja and Jack.
