Alaska–Day 36

This is the third blog I am posting today.  Don’t miss the photographs in day 34, especially.  We have been without internet since Fort Nelson.

Today is the longest day of the year, the first day of summer, the solstice.  Folks who live in the northern latitudes, like Alaska and Sweden, celebrate this day.  In the temperate zones, it just marks a season.  And to most people, summer begins when the kids get out of school, not on June 21.

What is this day and night like here, north of the 59th parallel?  ( For perspective, the 41st parallel is the Colorado-Wyoming border).  It never really gets dark at night.  Between maybe midnight and 2, it is fairly dark.  The sun comes up about 4 am and sets after 9:30 pm.  It goes around somewhere above the southern horizon.  I’m sure the moon still shines in the sky, but it has been so light or so cloudy and rainy whenever I was outside, I haven’t seen it for weeks.

The temperature here at Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park has been in the upper 40s overnight and in the high 60s/low 70s in the day.  Sunny, calm, nearly perfect.

We feel we have been on a mini-vacation.  This has been a place to relax and do nothing, or only what we decide at the moment we want to do.  No tourist sights to see, no driving.  We haven’t started the truck since we unhitched.  We have walked a lot, soaked in the hot springs pools twice, done carving and beading, talked even more than usual.  It’s been great.

We have a number of red squirrels in the campground—scampering about, looking for handouts, chattering at us.  We also had a snowshoe Hare, which we had never seen before.  Surprisingly, it is solid brown in summer, white in winter.

Tomorrow, we are back on the road, headed to Watson Lake, Yukon Territory.