Just another gosh-darn sunset

Given the Earth is kind of an established shape (oblate spheroid, aka 'round') and since orbital mechanics are known with literally astronomical accuracy, you'd think the time of dusk and dawn, hell whether there will even be a dusk and dawn, would have been pretty well nailed down. Like since the time of Ptolemy.

Go too far north though, and Google loses the ability to calculate these things.

The midnight sun was on my bucket list. I saw the midday night (twilight to the pedants) in Tromso in 1994, but that was disappointingly like normal night (twilight). Dark, mostly.

It certainly polarises people (boom boom) - I had variously heard it reported as 'just another goddamn sunset', or 'as a golden orb rolling along the ocean, setting fire to the sea'. I was intrigued by which I would find, so north I headed. And further north, and further north still. It was a race of VW Golf against time, as each day saw the Earth swept along its orbit, and the North Pole rotated further away from the sun. Rovaniemi, gateway to the north, and smack bang on the Arctic Circle, had had its solitary day without sunset three weeks past, and was again subject to brief nightly interludes of sunless twilight.

So I left the Arctic Circle and then Finland altogether and carried up into Norway to the town of Kirkenes just west of the Russian border and only 225km drive from Murmansk.

I checked again - sunset at 11:30pm. What. The. Fuck.

I was running out of options. Perhaps Nordkapp would still be in permanent light and I could overnight there? Failing that, what? Rent a boat? I could row to Svalbard if needs be.

11:30pm came and went, and I was turning in, closing the comfortingly opaque blinds (the Finns really need to seek advice from the Norwegians on this) when I noticed a peculiar orange glow against the building opposite. Looks rather like sunlight that. I Google again Kirkenes dusk. Yep - it is now officially night. I bring up Google Earth. Yep - the terminator is well north of me and Kirkenes is shrouded in darkness.

Except it wasn't. And that *is* sunlight.

I slipped on my boots and coat (but crucially, not my cap), and headed out past the buildings to the end of Kielland Torkilsens Gate.

The Sun! Shining bright as day! Literally!

It was only just above the gentle slope on the opposite shore of Bokfjorden but it most resolutely Had Not Set. Well, if I couldn't get a Midnight Sun, I'd make damn well sure I got a Quarter to Midnight Sun. I headed north down Parkveien to the much better positioned, and nicely alcohol-stocked Thon Hotel, bought myself a pint, propped myself on the railing over the water, and settled in for the show.

But, after a few minutes, the sun still hadn't moved. At this proximity to the horizon, the sun can (if only just perceptibly) be seen to move, but this one hadn't. There it was, still hovering an outstretched pinkie above the opposing slope. I squinted, studying more carefully. It *was* descending, only it was also skidding sideways, down that gentle slope. I looked at my clock, 11:50. It's not going to make it!

There's no daylight saving in Norway is there? It turns out there is, but with Norway on a single timezone, Central European Time, and with Kirkenes so far east of the large (by Norwegian standards) population centres, this simply correctly aligns Kirkenes' clocks with its solar day (for the rest of the year, it's out by about an hour). It most definitely is Not going to make it! With striking geographic convenience, the midnight sun bottomed out just after midnight, fully visible in the low point in the hills opposite Kirkenes.

Holy shit. The. Midnight. Sun. I was looking at the midnight sun!

What did I see? A Rubin vase. Mostly I was looking at a sunset. But for one brief moment I was instead standing astride the top of the world, watching as it rotated on its axis beneath me. *That* was worth it.

Just to make sure I hadn't screwed this up, or the sun wouldn't reverse course and start descending again as soon as my back was turned, I waited another hour until it was clear another day had begun, and the heat loss through my uncapped bald spot was causing my teeth to chatter. While I watched, the sun did actually temporarily disappear, as its upward trajectory swept it behind the steeper easterly hill, but that is a sunset in letter only and I am disallowing it.

I saw the Midnight Sun.