By Tim Querengesser
If I were rich -- and I mean oil-tycoon rich -- I would try many ridiculously indulgent things. One of them would be to follow the midnight sun for a year. There's something about life in constant sunlight that warms my soul. Stretching days in ways they refuse to be stretched at other times of the year makes me feel triumphant, like I've discovered the secret to overcoming time. Of course, that feeling has disappeared with the August return of proper darkness here in Yellowknife, at 62.25 degrees north. Now, I wish I were rich enough to fly further north (vacation in Alert?) for another month of one a.m. sunlight.
This got me to thinking: Is it actually possible to remain in the midnight sun for a full year? Could, say, Bill Gates, use his wealth to take him to exotic places and bask in sunlight into the wee hours of the morning for 365 continuous days?
Well, technically, it is possible -- both the North and South poles experience 186 days of continuous daylight, since they have only one sunrise and sunset per year. Of course, to pull off a nightless year, you'd have to stay at the North Pole and South Pole for six months each. Which, to be blunt, sounds pretty crappy, cold and expensive.
And boring.
But what would be the most amount of time one could spend in the midnight sun in more reasonable locales, such as ones with airports and hotels? In Grise Fiord, Nunavut -- Canada's Northernmost community -- you'll get about four months of midnight sun, give or take a few weeks.
On the other end of the world, things aren't so sunny around midnight. Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, sits at a relatively mild 54.5 degrees southern latitude. That's just a bit closer to the South Pole than Edmonton is to the North Pole. Which means, properly speaking, no midnight sun.
Count yourselves lucky, Northerners. You've got something no one else has. Unfortunately, you're going to have to endure a dark winter before that midnight glow returns. But if you're like me, you know it's worth the wait.
