A Good Inclination

(by Leslie)

We’ve been in Fairbanks almost four months now, and the summer solstice—as well as our return to California—is nigh. So what you all are no doubt wondering is, what’s it been like, having the midnight sun?

Before I answer that question, a few words about this phenomenon—the midnight sun. Right now, the sun is setting at about 12:30 a.m. and rising at about 3:00 a.m. We therefore technically have some 21.5 hours of sun per day. But in reality, we have 24 hours of light per day, because when the sun does set, it merely dips a few degrees below the horizon, not resulting in much change in light. In fact, we now no longer have any “civil twilight” (the brightest of the three classes of twilight)—it’s all just plain old “sunlight.”

One could read a book outdoors at midnight if one so desired. (Though the mosquitoes would likely prevent one from having this particular desire. More about that later.) Here’s a photo I took the other night a little after midnight:

 it was actually lighter than this suggests;

I had to under-expose the photo to show the color of the sky

And we’ve been having some magnificent sunset/sunrise colors in the sky. Here’s a photo I took a few days after the previous one, at 12:30 a.m.:

 ditto about the exposure of the shot

Living somewhere where it never gets dark has got me thinking a lot about why this occurs. And it’s made me much more conscious of the relationship between the earth and the sun. For up here near the Arctic Circle the sun’s path right now, rather than setting in the west and rising in the east, describes a full circle around the horizon, but at a slight angle. At noon it’s about 50° above the horizon (to the south), and at midnight it’s maybe 5° degrees below (to the north). Imagine a sort of halo in the sky that’s slipped askew, as a crown worn at a jaunty angle—that’s the sun’s path here in Fairbanks right now.

The reason for this, of course, is because the axis of the Earth’s rotation is at an inclination. In other words, the north pole is tipped towards the sun in the summer, and away from it in the winter. This inclination is what causes the seasons. So thank goodness for it, no? Here’s an illustration:

 click here to see the website this diagram is from,

and for more info and illustrations

So, to get back to the original question: what’s it like being here now? Well, weird. For the first few weeks of midnight sun my sleep was severely disrupted by the lack of night, even though the curtains in our bedroom do a good job of keeping out the light. But when you get up in the middle of the night to let the dog out or go pee yourself, it’s like daytime. Which is weird. But now my body seems to have adjusted, and I’m sleeping fine.

Now that we have such long days, all the plants are really starting to go gangbusters. Once green-up happened, the landscape looked pretty much the same for about a month—green. Just green. Everywhere.

It was pretty, and a nice change after the pure white of winter. But before long I was aching for some more colors. So I was thrilled when the first dandelions started to bloom:

At home in California, Robin and I wage an unending war with dandelions, digging them up wherever they show their little faces. But here, folks understandably like them, being the first color besides green to appear since snow has covered the world the previous September or October.

 dandelion-covered field near our house

The dandelions were followed soon thereafter by perky bluebells popping up all along the side of the roads:

And then I noticed tiny flashes of pink peeking out from the bushes. Leaning in close, I realized that they were wild roses.

Soon they were everywhere! Who knew they’d been hiding there all along, under all that blanket of snow?

Looks like next to bloom will be a sort of pea that’s sprouting up all along the verge, but we may be gone before they show their colors. And after that will be the fireweed, whose blooms we will surely miss.

The other thing that has blossomed in the spring is the mosquito. In just the past week they have probably tripled in number, and woe to the poor soul that goes for a walk without slathering herself first in insect repellant.

One thing I’ve learned though, is why horses have evolved with manes and tails. Robin and I have let our hair get much longer than we usually do while up here, being too lazy to seek out the local Supercuts.

 Robin demonstrating her long tresses, Cousin Itt-style

But during my daily walks with Ziggy, I’ve noticed that having long hair is terrific in mosquito country: I simple shake my head, and the pesky skeeters skedaddle from my face!

So what have we learned from our four months in Fairbanks?

Plenty. Too much to say here. But one thing that surprised us both was just how much we preferred the winter to the spring/summer (yes, I know it’s not technically summer yet, but you know what I mean). Robin wrote about this in her Spring Melancholy post here.

A lot of it is the claustrophobia we’ve experienced living in a birch forest. This must be a West Coast thing, since we’re used to the Wide Open Spaces an’ all. Robin and I said the same thing about New England when we were there.

During the winter, when the trees had no leaves, it was fine because the sun shone between the trunks, and there was so much reflected light from the snow. But once the snow melted and green-up happened, we lost a significant amount light. So the great irony is that here we are in the land of the midnight sun, feeling sun-deprived.

But we have loved being here. It’s been one of the most exhilarating and interesting experiences of our lives. And we’ve talked about returning some time—in March, for the aurora, the ice carving, the mushing, the snow, and the cold! Who would-a guessed?