Do you remember the 2007 horror movie 30 Days of Night where vampires took over a town in Alaska? The town that inspired that gory movie was called Barrow, and it is a real place where darkness falls for two months out of the year.

In 2016, Barrow officially changed its name to Utqiaġvik, an Iñupiat Eskimo word that reflects the roots the people who live in the city (it is more than 60% Iñupiat Eskimo). Utqiaġvik sits on the northern tip of Alaska, hundreds of miles above the Arctic Circle and 1300 miles south of the North Pole.

As of November 18, it will not see another sunset until January. We understand why it would be the perfect backdrop for a movie about vicious, hungry vampires. This time of year, the northernmost city in this country is in the midst of “polar night.”

Because of its location above the Arctic border, the town doesn’t receive sunlight. The sun just doesn’t shine in this part of the world at this time. Instead, it is a period of civil twilight, which, according to Timeanddate.com, describes when “the sun is less than 6 degrees below the horizon.”

It provides just enough natural light for a few hours a day – roughly 6 – for people to be able to see things while outdoors. But as we move closer to the winter solstice, it will only be for 3 hours a day. That is quite the phenomenon!

This happens every winter and as you can imagine, living without sunlight can make things very, very cold. It is Alaska after all. From November until around April or May, the average temperature is about 3°F but often falls below zero, where the January highs can easily be -10°F or -19°F and even lower at night.

In winter at the opposite end of the pole in Antarctica, the sun does not set, and the South Pole is this way for 6 months. The only humans living in that region are scientific researchers. It is dark in the northernmost part but light in the southernmost tip. Wow.

However, in the springtime this trend reverses into polar day and the city will experience 80 days of sunlight with no sign of night. The town has what’s called a “midnight sun” during the summer where the sun lowers but does not set.

Still, the warm season for Utqiagvik will see its highest temperatures in the 40° to 46° range. All of this is due to the position of the sun as the Earth rotates on its axis. Because of its tilt, certain regions of the planet will go with or without light.

If you are one of those people who suffers from the winter blues, living in Utqiagvik probably would not work well for you. The town’s population of 4,400 are so used to it that waiting for the sunrise to return in January 2019 is like a piece of cake.

Have you visited this section of the world before? Do you think you could cope with no sunlight for months? No night for 80 days?

Sources:

Weatherspark