Whether hiking or fishing or pulling weeds from the garden, there is something delightfully peerless about being outdoors at 11 p.m or later during these halcyon days of June that usher us to the summer solstice.
In the subtle interchange of day and night, when there isn't really much of a night, we feel blessed to be out at an hour when most people have surrendered to sleep. In some ways, perhaps because of the rigid schedules we've kept most of our lives, we feel a bit like thieves — that we're stealing time that isn't rightfully ours.
I'm reminded of a time when a friend and I, at 10 years old, sneaked out of our houses on the summer solstice. We lived in Seward, and with very strict parents, it was one of the bravest endeavors I recall from my childhood.
We both thought something strange and mysterious would happen if we were to venture out at that time. Seward had a curfew, and because we were worried that the town's on-duty cop would pick us up, we immediately adopted stealth mode.
Seward was so quiet it was unsettling. After a risky raid of a neighborhood garden, one of the town's best, we wandered down to the small boat harbor and listened to the creaking of berthed vessels as they moved about with the changing tide. We could hear distant snoring from somewhere along the boardwalk pier.
We hiked around town for a while, and were startled by the metallic clanking of railroad cars down by the dock. We had no idea what time it was, but it wasn't long before the low clouds hanging on Mount Marathon began to turn a pale pink. From somewhere came faint bird calls. A new day was coming.
I don't know about my friend, but at that moment I had a sense there was no division between day and night — that one part of the day simply dissolved into another. Even at my young age, it made me think a bit about time — how it's something we create to order our lives.
Creeping back into our houses was equally scary, but we both pulled it off and our parents were none the wiser. We were fortunate that no one locked their houses back in those days.
The next morning my mom was curious about why I wanted to sleep so late, and wondered why there was so much mud on my tennis shoes. I was lucky my dad worked night shifts on the dock. He was Sherlock Holmes incarnate.
At midnight at this time of year — whether standing on top of Flattop, kayaking indolently in Prince William Sound, casting for salmon on the Russian River, or just standing along Turnagain Arm and taking in the ever-restless waters of Cook Inlet, we feel privileged; even somewhat exalted, to be Alaskans.
Climbing the Chugach Mountains near my home in Eagle River late in the evening in May and June, I am always reminded of lines from a poem entitled "Thinking of Tu Fu on a Summer Evening," by Tom Sexton, former Alaska Poet Laureate:
Frank E. Baker is a freelance writer who lives in Anchorage.
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