In the Arctic and Antarctic circles, months go by where the sun never rises.
But what’s it like living where darkness reigns? Many think that the absence of familiar cues, day-night cycles and exposure to vitamin D must drain residents and throw their routines off balance, but we have spoken to some people who have experienced the opposite.
A photographer, explorer and two Arctic residents have shared their personal experiences of the dark season with us, and have debunked some common misconceptions about it…
Graeme Chesters
Photographer and researcher Graeme Chesters, 57, looks back at his dark season stint in Svalbard – an archipelago of islands in the Arctic Ocean, located between Norway and the North Pole – with great fondness.
“A lot of people’s initial responses are ‘Oh it must be depressing‘ and tend to imagine it’s like Seasonal Affective Disorder,” says the researcher director at 90 North Foundation. “But, if you’re living in light for six months of the year, there is actually a lot of anticipation about the dark and the spectacles that it gives rise to such as the aurora, the full moon and starlight.
“It doesn’t take very long to understand what a unique opportunity it is, to see the Northern Lights at any time in the day, to be able to see the Milky Way, to see starlight like you’ve never seen it before.”
During his first taste of the polar night two years ago, Chesters found that the community still made a conscious effort to host events to stay connected.
“There are lots of communal events going such as the Blues Festival which marks the start of the dark season,” he reveals. “It becomes a very social time.”
However, residents also enjoy winding down during this period.
“Rather than seeing it as being something to kind of live through, you realise this is something to be enjoyed,” highlights Chesters. “It provides the opportunity to read more books, sit around and wear the thickest, most wonderful woolly jumper that you’ve got.
“I luxuriated in it a little bit. It was profoundly enjoyable in a way that I hadn’t anticipated.”
Pen Hadow
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