Sun is a rather peculiar object here in Finland. I’ve already mentioned this peculiarity in several of my posts, but even when I have it was more or less a side note. But now things have become different, radically different. In fact, different enough to make me write all this.

Finland is a northern country. It’s way up north. In fact, it’s so far up north that one third of the country’s land is located above the arctic circle. And people have still chosen to live there. Simply being there might not seem like anything, but I find it to be quite amazing. Why? Here’s why!

One of the things I’ve been thinking about before coming here was winter. Not so much because it can be devilishly cold, but primarily because it is dark like in the cave. The temperatures can be really cold, or not, but the darkness is guaranteed every year. And I’ve lived through winter without being bothered by the lack of sunlight that much. It sure is weird to wake up at 10 o’clock in the morning and outside it’s still practically night. The same goes for the noon when the sun is barely above the horizon casting long shadows like the evening sun usually does. And that’s what it is: by local standards it is evening. I could almost say that from late November until late January the four hours of sunshine make the daylight time look an eternal evening. It was peculiar, unusual, weird, but I found it to be quite OK.

Now, where I am it’s not even the middle of the country. Several hundred kilometers up north the situation is completely different. The sun there does not even rise above the horizon for full eight weeks. Which makes these places pitch black for quite a while. In this case no sun doesn’t make it just look like the weather is bad, but it really is dark all the time. I think that would be pretty tough to chew and swallow.

However, the situation right now is completely different. Currently there is plenty of daylight and sunlight. But just how much is plenty of sunlight? Today in Jyväskylä plenty is 18 hours and 48 minutes as the sun rose at 3:52 am and has set at 10:40 pm. Even though the sun officially sets for five hours, the sky remains light all night. Which renders this short night into an eternal twilight which lasts for a few months. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining, but this has stirred me more than the darkness in the wintertime has. It’s weird to go out for a run at 10:00 pm (which is a usual time for my runs) and the sun is still shining. One loses the sense of time and the need for sleep is skewed too.

So what’s it like in the north where the sun doesn’t rise in winter? I don’t really know, but the newspapers that publish daily information about sunrise and sunset in three different locations in the country now show only two places. While the Finnish Meteorological Institute politely explains: “Aurinko ei nouse eikä laske tänään.” or “The sun neither rises nor sets today.” Now how cool is that.

Enjoy while it shines!

Mladen

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 28th, 2006 at 12:29 am and is filed under Finland, Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.