When I moved to Nunavut from the South, there was one thing I could not wait to experience. It is called the midnight sun.

I am a daylight type of person, and I love the sun, so the idea of having the sun out 24 hours a day for a couple of months made me very excited. 

The midnight sun, also called the polar day, is the time when the sun does not set at all, and you get weeks of 24-hour daylight. This happens in late spring and through the summer, here in Nunavut and across the whole Arctic.

The first time you live through it, it feels like magic. It also feels a little strange.

In this post, I want to share my real-life experience with the midnight sun for the first time.

What is the midnight sun?

The midnight sun is simple to explain. As I said before, it is when the sun stays up in the sky for 24 hours. It does not go down. There is no night.

The sun does not rise in the morning and set in the evening. Instead, it moves in a big, slow circle.

It stays low in the sky. It goes up a little higher around noon. It dips down close to the horizon around midnight. But it never touches the horizon. It never sets.

The further north you go, the longer this lasts. The closer you are to the North Pole, the more days of non-stop daylight you get.

Why does the midnight sun happen?

The reason is the way the Earth sits in space. The Earth does not stand straight up and down. It leans. It is tilted at an angle of about 23.5 degrees.

During the summer months, the top half of the Earth leans toward the sun. This top half is called the Northern Hemisphere.

Nunavut is very far north. So it stays pointed at the sun, even while the Earth spins on its axis.

This is why the sun never disappears. The Earth keeps turning, but our part of the world stays in the light the whole time.

That is why the sun looks like it is travelling in a circle. It does not rise and set the way it does in the South.

How the midnight sun can affect your sleep

Yes, the midnight sun can mess with your sleep a little in the first couple of days.

Maybe you have a blackout curtain. Maybe your room is quite dark. But some light still finds a way in. That small bit of light can wake you up too early. If the light still gets to the room, try wearing a sleep mask. It was a game changer for me in the first nights. It might help you too.

The hours before bedtime can also be messed up by the midnight sun. Sometimes it will feel like 5 pm, but it is already 10 pm. For that, a simple trick is to close your curtains around 8 pm. This starts to make the house darker, or at least less bright, and it signals your body that bedtime is coming.

Nobody told me how warm it can feel

Here is something people forget to talk about. They do not tell you how warm Nunavut can feel in the warmer months.

The thermometer can say something like 8 degrees Celsius, and yet it does not feel that cold. It feels much warmer than the number.

There is a simple reason for this: the midnight sun. Because the sun stays up all day and night, the air does not cool off. On top of that, when the snow is still on the ground, it acts like a giant mirror. It bounces the strong sunlight right back at you.

So you are warmed by the sun from above and by the reflection from below. You feel it from both sides. And that is why, sometimes, you can be outside in a t-shirt, or indoors with a fan on and the windows open.

People sleep when they are tired, not when the clock says so

Here is another curious thing about life under the midnight sun: the clock stops dictating your day. If your work does not tie you to a fixed schedule, you might set your bedtime and your wake-up time based on how your body feels instead.

Because I am still new here, I do not know yet if the rhythm stays like this all year long. But during the midnight sun months, it is perfectly normal to look out your window at 2 am and see people walking the streets, heading out to hunt or fish, or even kids riding their bikes.

A local explained that some people simply go to bed when they are tired, not when the clock tells them to. It is a completely different way to live, but it makes perfect sense when the sun never goes down.

Why the midnight sun is great for tourists and newcomers

If you are like me, a newcomer in Nunavut, this is a wonderful time of the year to explore the outdoors and get to know the beauty of your new community.

Let us say you finish work at 5 pm. You still have a whole night of sunlight ahead of you. There is plenty of time to get out on the land and do outdoor activities.

In my opinion, this is a huge asset. It is especially good for tourists. If they only have a few days here, the long daylight lets them see and do so much more.

The light stays with you all day. You do not have to rush before dark, because there is no dark.

Final thoughts on the midnight sun

The midnight sun is one of the most special parts of living in the North.

If you ever have the opportunity to experience it, take it. Do not be scared of the 24-hour daylight. A sleep mask and a steady bedtime are all you need to feel at home in it.

It is true that you will not see the northern lights while the sun stays up all day. You have to wait for the dark months for that. But the midnight sun gives you something just as beautiful in its own way.

Your eyes get long, golden days that never seem to end. Your body gets endless time to be outside on the land. And your mind gets a kind of calm that is hard to put into words.

If you can live it even once, I think you should.