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In the Land of the Midnight Sun
Appears in
Published 2003
It is 3 A.M. and the sun is still shining brightly as our boat gently puffs out from Harstad harbor toward the open sea. I am tired from only an hour and a half of sleep, but the skipper, Geir, a teacher in his late fifties, says that soon the light will tell my body that it is daytime, and the fatigue will go away.
“When you have gone a few days without sleep, then you start feeling really tired,” he says. “You Southerners always have a bit of a problem adapting.” Norwegians like me, who live south of the Arctic Circle, are always referred to as Southerners. Even if our winter is cold and long too, it is just not the real thing. “We who live here have figured it out. We stay awake during summer and sleep through the winter.”