美国国家公共电台 NPR After 2 Months, The Sun Rises In The Northernmost U.S. Town

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LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

In the northernmost town in the United States, the sun stops appearing above the horizon in November and doesn't make it back up until January. That first sunrise of the New Year is the pivot-point for Utqiagvik, away from winter and towards spring, delivering people on Alaska's northern Arctic coast from the long spell of darkness. Here's Ravenna Koenig of Alaska's energy desk.

RAVENNA KOENIG, BYLINE¹: When the sun comes up in Utqiagvik it makes a dramatic entrance, a thumbnail of neon pink inching above the horizon. And people are so, so glad to see it, like Malcolm Noble.

MALCOLM NOBLE: When we get the sun back, it's a completely different atmosphere. You see people's faces light up. You just want to step outside. (Laughter).

KOENIG: If you're not from here, Utqiagvik has an otherworldly look at any time of year. It's almost totally flat. There are no trees, no mountains. But it's especially striking now, when the cluster of homes and buildings on the cusp of the Arctic Ocean are surrounded on all sides by white, the flat expanse of snow covered tundra² to the south and the frozen tumble of sea ice to the north. Robin³ Mongoyak drives out to the edge of town, where there's an unimpeded view of the afternoon sun hovering⁴ just above a never-ending expanse of snow.

ROBIN MONGOYAK: Man, the sun, I've been waiting for it. I tell you what, I lived here for 49 years. I felt like I had SAD this past year - what's that? - seasonal⁵ affective disorder⁶.

KOENIG: Yeah.

Mongoyak says this was the first time in his life that the winter darkness sat heavy on him like that. But when the sun came back in late January, it reminded him that February and March, what he calls the best days of sunshine, were right within reach.

MONGOYAK: The whitest snow, the bluest skies and the orange circle right there, just getting higher and higher, from more orange to more golden, you know? It's amazing.

KOENIG: He repeats a phrase in the Inupiaq language that he associates with this time of year.

MONGOYAK: That's what my mom and my dad used to say when we were growing up as kids, you know? (Speaking Inupiaq) Quvianaqsiniaqtuq. It's going to get wonderful. Life is going to spring back to us. Spring is coming. Summer is around the corner. Birds, when they come in big flocks, it's like thousands of people coming to greet us.

KOENIG: Mongoyak gets out of the car with his toddler son.

(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR CLOSING)

KOENIG: And they gaze across the tundra.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS ON SNOW)

MONGOYAK: Look, sunshine.

KOENIG: Mongoyak says that seeing the sun reminds him of all the spring and summer activities that are waiting for Utqiagvik just around the corner - whaling, goose and duck hunting, fishing on the ocean, Karibu hunting on the tundra and just being outside. He's got a big smile on his face as he talks about it in the orange afternoon light.

Right now, Utqiagvik is gaining minutes of sunlight by the day. By May, the town will be living in the other extreme - 24 hours of daylight every day until August, when the sunshine hours start to whittle⁷ down towards winter again. For NPR News, I'm Ravenna Koenig in Utqiagvik.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE POLYPHONIC SPREE SONG, "LIGHT & DAY/REACH FOR THE SUN")