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Days of Midnight Sun: Scandinavian Celebration of the Longest Day |
| Section: CULTURE / HERITAGE |
| Author: Eloise Paananen |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 6/1/1991 |
| Size: 2,018 Words, 12,384 Characters |
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The sun rises at Utsjoki, Lapland, on May 16 at about one in the morning and doesn't set until the 26th of July at around midnight. For those ten weeks in the north of Finland, you can read newspapers, conduct business, chase reindeer, play golf, go to the sauna, and swim afterward--all in uninterrupted daylight.
People from southern Finland, and from many other countries, think so highly of the idea that Finnair regularly schedules flights to Utsjoki for one, two, or three "nights" of midsummer revelry each year. And so, each year, jet-lagged tourists and foreign business people try to make sense of this longest "day," hoping--with the aid of blackout curtains--for a little sleep now and then. They also wonder where everybody else has gone. The answer is: to the countryside, to celebrations of Midsummerfest. Considered the best of the rural festivals, Midsummerfest is marked with dances and bonfires from one end of the land to the other.
"Way down south" in Helsinki, which shares the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska, the sun rises on June 21 at about three in the morning and does not set until ten in the evening. This period of long, even endless, summer days goes on throughout Finland and the entire Sca...
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...tions. The greater diversity here (in the United States) is a feature of being part of a very large and varied culture. I like to think that it adds to the celebration. Midsommar in Sweden is wonderful, and I'm glad to have been there, but when people said, "You probably have nothing like this at home," I'm happy that I can truly say that I hoped they could be with us for Midsommar some year.
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
comprehensive academic resource that encompasses a broad range of
articles by scholars and experts in the areas of Global Studies,
Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
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