My ex-wife is from North Pole, AK, a suburb of Fairbanks (in AK terms). I went up there once in the Summer, and it was spectacular! The sun never really set. I was light out all the time. Amazing. Then I spent about 5 subsequent Christmases up there. Mind you, Christmas is a few days after the winter solstice. The sortest days of the year. Quite a difference. No sun. Absolutely no direct sun. You could not see it, it never actually rose above the horizon. Dawn and dusk were about a total of 3 or4 hours, combined. -20 was normal, even balmy. The last day I was ever in AK, it dropped to -70. Turns out that's too cold to de-ice a plane. The pilot and a ticketing agent were on the wings with brooms trying to remove the ice. Not kidding, and it was not a small plane. 727 or 737, I believe. Didn't work. Sat on the tarmac for 6 hours. From midnight to 6am or so. That's right. Flights all originate in AK around midnight so that they can to SEA/TAC in the usual morning lower 48 air-commuter hours. It is a crazy, crazy place.
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