Carpentering for the Carpenter

11:45 p.m.: I finish what I'm doing in the garage and it still quite light outside.
5:45. a.m.: I wake up and the Sun had beat me up by half an hour.

This reminds me of Uranium City, some 300 miles further north than we are now. Our first night there in August of 1975 we were laying in bed. Our bedroom faced north and had a rather large window. As we waited for it to get dark so we could fall asleep, it got lighter! So much for that idea. (Tin foil on windows was common up there.)Until you see it, its hard to imagine the northern sky being lighter than the rest!

Back in Grande Prairie area, I did some research about the longest day (or should I say "shortest night") of the year. Sunset is at 10:39 p.m. and sunrise is at 5:14 a.m. It's that way for about a week. But it stays light a lot longer that that. So I compared us with Long Beach, California. (Most of us have been there in summer.)

In Long Beach, on this day, sunset is at 8:07 p.m. and sunrise is at 5:42 a.m. But then there is twilight. And I was surprized to discover there are three official levels of twilight. Civil twilight, when its still light outside after sunset, lasts about 30 minutes in Long Beach. Nautical twilight, when you can still see outlines of things, lasts another 35 minutes. And Astronomical twilight, when the sky is still illuminated, lasts another 40 minutes. (Technically, twilight is determined by how far the Sun is blew the horizon, in 6 degree increments. By 18 degrees the sky it totally dark.)

Back in Grande Prairie, we have an hour of civil twilight, about twice what Long Beach gets. But then it gets interesting, Nautical twilight lasts the rest of the night for about a month at this time of the year. Our street lights come on but we don't really need them on a clear night. And the sky stays light, especially to the north, throughout May, June and July!

What's going on. It's a part of God's great creation. This earth He made for us to live on is angled on its axis about 23 degrees. So in the summer, when its tilted toward the Sun, we get longer days. Because of the curvature of the earth, and the fact that further north the Sun goes down at a greater angle, the farther north you go, the longer the day, but even longer the twilight. I like to think that the Sun in playing "hide and seek" with us, and is still peaking over the north pole at us at midnight.

When my grandfather left New Mexico 96 years ago, his goal was this area. But he only made it as far as central Alberta. I think that was a good thing, because even there, my Dad said, Grandpa never got used to the longer days in summer and shorter days in winter.

To all my readers, enjoy the Sun wile you can!