Happy Summer Solstice

Both the Summer and Winter Solstices are important days for me in Alaska. Because it heralds the return of the sun, the Winter Solstice always brings pure joy. The Summer Solstice, though, is a bittersweet day, a reminder of how quickly summer goes.

We've still got 24 hours of daylight here, but before long we'll be losing six minutes of light each day. Add it up, and that's about three quarters of an hour each week. The change in light is dramatic if you pay attention -- probably more dramatic if you don't. I can imagine looking up one day to find that it's getting dark a couple hours earlier than I expected.

Except that I'm always paying attention to the light. It's one of my favorite things about living in Alaska.

The first five or six years we lived here, we spent every Summer Solstice in the canoe, me paddling from the bow and G. fly fishing from the stern -- backwards, but that's how we do it. I miss that tradition.



Last night we decided to take some sandwiches and folding chairs and sit down by the Chena River for part of the evening. The past few days have been almost unbearably hot: Up to 80F. (Don't laugh! I grew up where it stayed above 100 degrees for days on end, with horrible humidity, and I hated it. After years in Alaska, 70 is warm.)



The evening started under the shadow of a huge cloud. I love the way its shape seems to echo the treeline. I thought it would rain, but eventually the cloud just moved away, probably dropping its rain somewhere miles from us.

The light turned golden after that, as the sun slanted low.



I've noticed this summer we seem to have more songbirds than usual. I can remember summers when we would have heard no birdsong at all, but this year the robins have moved in with a vengeance. They were singing and scuffling all around us, and I heard other birds I can't identify, too. I can't think of too many things more pleasant than sitting by the river, watching the water flow by and listening to the birds singing their little heads off.

When we got home, I wandered around taking more photos. I particularly love the midnight blue velvet of these petunias.



Wild roses blanket most of Alaska in June with vivid pink and sweet fragrance. Rosehips feed the birds and animals, and they make a lovely syrup, too.



These groundhugging plants are called "dogwoods" by Alaskans. The flowers do resemble those on the trees in the South, but still, I'm tickled by the name. In the fall the bushes bear bright orange berries.



Like the wild roses, wild irises carpet the land for a brief spell in June. And like so much here, their beauty is brief but intense.



These were all taken between 10 p.m. and midnight, with no flash.

Happy Midsummer, all.