Life under the Midnight Sun

June 13, 2005 3:43 PM

I'm looking for good media resources (especially books) on the lands of the midnight sun (and ?daytime darkness?). Works that cover sociology, culture, work habits, sleep habits and other interesting aspects and adaptations of people living in such conditions.
posted by daksya to society & culture (7 comments total)

Are you looking for scholarly works, novels, or anecdotal evidence, or?

Have you read "This Cold Heaven: seven seasons in Greenland" by Gretel Ehrlich? This is a travel memoir, but it's filled with interesting tidbits. For example, the winter time is fun time. That's when people get together and visit distant friends and family and party, because it's a) too dark to work and b) natural ice bridges form between the islands (making travel easier). The first day in spring when the sun appears over the horizon is a national holiday.

"Blackwater" by Kerstin Ekman is set in Northern Sweden, and one of its theme is the psychological impact that such darkness can bring.

William's Heinesen's novels are set in Faroe Islands.

You can email me at [e-mail], and I'll pass the question along to my professors in the Scandinavian Dept. at the University of Washington.
posted by luneray at 4:44 PM on June 13, 2005

I live in Fairbanks, Alaska, and was born and raised in Homer, Alaska. If you are wanting some anecdotes, I am sure to be filled with them, though I cannot think of any books off the top of my head; I don't peruse the Alaskana section of the book stores. My email is in my profile.

You could contact some professors at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks for some book recommendations.
posted by rhapsodie at 5:13 PM on June 13, 2005

Any resource where the focus on this topic is an integral part of the content. A novel set in, say, Finland, might include information and description as part of plot or setting, but then it's not focused on that.

Anecdotes are cool, too.
posted by daksya at 6:07 PM on June 13, 2005

This is only a part of the book, but Jared Diamond's Collapse has several chapters on Viking Norse settlements in Greenland -- how they survived and, bien sur, why the settlements collapsed. He compares and contrasts them with Iceland, whose original settlements are still going, and also the Dorset and the Inuit. Each settlement's survival techniques are outlined. I don't know if you are interested in historical life in these areas, but if so, you might want to check it out.
posted by girlpublisher at 9:15 PM on June 13, 2005

Oh! just thought of one. The book Smilla's Sense of Snow had a lot of great passages about northern Greenland. I have not seen the movie.
posted by rhapsodie at 1:57 PM on June 14, 2005

Oh! just thought of one. The book Smilla's Sense of Snow had a lot of great passages about northern Greenland. I have not seen the movie.
posted by rhapsodie at 1:58 PM on June 14, 2005

Dang it.
posted by rhapsodie at 1:58 PM on June 14, 2005