Midsummer Nights at Norway
Watching the sun set at 11pm and show up again at 2am can be a very novel experience for people living along latitudes towards the centre of our planet. While I found this the most amazing phenomenon while traveling in Norway, for people living closer to the Artic in the North Pole and Antarctic in the South Pole, it’s something they have got used to.
There are large seasonal variations in daylight throughout the year in this `Land of the Midnight Sun’. The complete absence of a night sky in the summer months of June-July, when the sun barely manages to descend beneath the horizon, can be a weird feeling, jeopardizing our tropical concept of mornings and evenings. Conversely, the sun refuses to show up during the winter months of November to January. Add to this the natural occurrence of the Northern lights in the inky backdrop of the polar night sky and the surreal experience is complete. This celestial display, seen as dancing sheets or flames of light, in varied hues of green, yellow, red and a rare blue, is truly astounding.
I’m yet to witness this mystical spectacle. So far, I have managed to avoid the freezing Norway winters, not only because I dislike insulated living shuttling between heated rooms and heated modes of transport, but also because I miss that life sustaining radiance of the suns rays, of which even a glimmer is not expected on some days of the Norwegian winter months.
Wandering through this beautiful land of fiords, it was these atmospheric phenomenons, typical to high latitude regions that kept intriguing me. This year the summer solstice, or the longest day of the year, was on 23rd June. In Norway, just as in other regions of Scandinavia, it’s a very important time of the year with interesting peasant traditions, some that even pre-date Christianity.
