In the summer sky, this is what the paths of the sun look like (roughly) between Kansas City and Winnipeg:
When you start getting this far north, the sun in the summer is lower (as it is all year), but its path is longer. That's why you get such early sunrises and late sunsets this far north in the summer.
But the key issue is that it's lower in the sky.
Yesterday I was driving out of the airport, and it was only 3pm and already there were very long shadows as if it were sunset. Yet, there was still more than 6 hours until it actually got dark! As I write this it's 8:45 and still fairly light out. In KC at this time of year it's just about dark.
Even today when I was driving around at 12 noon, the shadows were still somewhat long. I'd say they were similar to what you'd get in KC at around 4 pm.
Think about that:
This far north, almost the entire (summer) day consists of light quality that looks like "sunrise" or "sunset."
Most people find sunrises and sunsets to be relaxing. My guess is that's at least partly to do with melatonin production. When you get all these big patches of semi-dark (shadows), it encourages melatonin production, which makes people relaxed.
In KC at this time of year, the sun is very high in the sky and beating down hard on you. There's not as much shade. At least for me, that makes me stressed. I've always found darkness to be relaxing. In my home, once the sun goes down I turn most of the lights off in my house because it relaxes me for a while before I go to bed.
Yesterday while driving from the airport, I found myself much more relaxed than usual for no particular reason (especially since I had just gotten off 6 hours of being in a plane or airports). I was observing all the long shadows, and it occurred to me that all these long shadows were what was making me feel relaxed.
Everything simply looked different than the same time of day in KC. And more relaxing.
My theory is that people living this far north will tend to be more relaxed than ones living farther south, for all these reasons (maybe it doesn't apply to everyone). I also suspect that people like Canadians and others who live this far north don't notice it, it's just "normal" to them.
I kinda noticed this when I was living in Seattle and, especially, Spokane but didn't think much of it. In Seattle, the Cascades block some of the sunrise, and the Olympics block some of the sunset, so even though it's pretty far north, the sunrises and sunsets are blocked off prematurely. Spokane doesn't have nearly the same kind of mountains so it didn't affect the sun as much.
But right now I'm about 2-3 degrees latitude farther north than either Seattle or Spokane, and it's flat as a pancake with no mountains to block either the sunrise or sunset.
Prev
Linear Mode
