Utqiagvik (oot·kee·aag·vuhk), Alaska (formally generally known as Barrow) is America’s northernmost metropolis.
It resides nicely throughout the Arctic Circle, that means it experiences lengthy intervals of darkness within the winter, and lengthy intervals of sunshine in the summertime.
The 5,000 residents loved their final sundown of 2022 on November nineteenth, they usually received’t see the solar rise once more till January twenty third, 2023.
That’s 64 days, or 1,536 hours, with out seeing the solar. Are you able to think about?
The common excessive temperature is under 0 levels Fahrenheit throughout this lengthy interval of darkness.
The vast majority of the residents are Iñupiat, and indigenous Inuit ethnic group. The Iñupiat have lived within the space for greater than 1,500 years.
^That is as a lot gentle the residents of Utqiagvik will see for greater than 60 days.
Utqiagvik’s residents work in varied companies that assist close by oil fields, they usually depend on subsistence meals sources like whaling, looking, and fishing as a result of their extraordinarily distant location.
Tourism has risen lately as many want to see the midnight summer season solar, and to observe Utqiagvik’s bustling polar bear inhabitants feast on whale carcasses left by fishermen on the seashores.
Do you assume you could possibly survive two months of full darkness in temperatures nicely under freezing?
Header Picture: Closing sundown in Utqiagvik on November nineteenth