Darkness ≠ Danger

All of my life I was told to stay inside after dark, to park under a streetlight, to not walk alone in the dark. This advice is valid, and it keeps plenty of people safe, and I don't follow any of it. 

You can't live like that in the North- days are darker than they are light right now. I start work at 2:00pm while the sun is setting, and an hour later it is dark outside the windows. Darkness doesn't necessarily mean danger here. Children play in the streets until well after the sun sets- after all, the sun sets before they even get out of school at 3:30. My subconscious still tells me that darkness means the end of the day. The other day, while I walked home after getting my mail, I passed a construction site where a floodlight lit up the area and a worker was welding. It struck me as odd. Who welds at midnight? As quickly as the thought entered my head, I realized that it was not midnight; it was 3:30pm. The long hours of darkness here do not affect me too much, probably because I am already used to living in a relatively Northern area. The other day it struck me dramatically when I woke up earlier than usual for a morning shift. I work an evening shift, and most days I wake up around 10:00am, when the sun is already mostly up. One morning last week I woke up at 8:15 for an unusual shift and was disoriented by the darkness in my room without sunlight coming in through my window.

I also live in a little city with streetlights and brightly lit houses. Even when the sun has set, the streets have light. With Christmas time approaching, bright decorations abound, adding to the light of the city even more. Yesterday was the final day of the citywide Christmas light contest, and I was driving around the city with a coworker to judge houses. Iqaluit is built in areas well known to locals and complicated to newcomers and visitors- I still am not certain what the area I live in is called- and we were on our way up to Tundra Ridge, when the city ahead of us went dark. The only light was the moon rising and headlights on the icy road. We looped around, waiting to see if the power would return. Blackouts happen here sometimes, but they tend to be small and brief. Five minutes later, all of upper Iqaluit was still dark, so we headed back to the pool. Downtown was still lit. We rounded a corner, lost sight of downtown, and, before we came back around, downtown lost power. A citywide blackout lasted around an hour, and so far we haven't heard what caused it (some saying fuel spill).

As I waited at home for the call saying to come back to work, I stood on my deck facing upper Iqaluit and watched the power come back, starting at the top of the hill and creeping down toward me, block by block.

Iqaluit at 4:30 normally (actually taken right after the power came back)

Iqaluit at 4:30 today with the power out

The stars are bright when the lights are out, and they look different at 4:30. The big dipper was nearly straight up and slightly to the East, Orion was hidden, and Cassiopeia was just above the southeast horizon.

- Aliya