The last few months in Alaska have felt as though someone snatched my sense of time and melted it inside a tub of hot molasses. The seasons seem to drip into one another like paint from different artworks. Dandelions out of the darkness, flowers in the place of frost.
Summertime here feels like a living, breathing time lapse — sunkissed stretches of bright, lush green and sky blue ceilings as far as the eye can see. A place of radical luminescence, where the day indulges in the gratuitousness of the endless hours. A slow and steady state of coming to terms with light and darkness. An infinite negotiation of space and rhythm against colors turned up all the way.
It wasn’t until I started spending lots of time here in Homer that I really gained a true appreciation for the notion of celebrating a solstice, this idea of collectively acknowledging these special days — the ones with the most and least amount of light — as a type of natural bookending system, like a silent agreement between creatures and elements.
Summer solstice also marks the moment when fishermen “splash” their boats into Bristol Bay, which is when they officially first get their vessels onto the water, kicking off this time of great abundance that keeps returning to the waters of Alaska with the same sweet generosity as the season’s recurring warmth. It’s a festive and hopeful time on the fishing grounds, where fishermen and women are ready, excited and focused.
Arron (my husband and our founder/CEO), always talks about how growing up in Alaska, summer solstice was always more than just a moment, but instead denoted a special time of great transitions, all interconnected by a creational momentum. Around solstice, the sockeye salmon start to run. Baby moose begin to wobble upon new lushness of green grasses that are wet with morning dew and sprouting with fresh mushrooms. Sandhill cranes with handsome color schemes and legs like flamingos sing into the vastness. The lupines wear their violet crowns like giant flames in the breeze. Soon, the berries will start to pump out from the bushes, dotting the landscape with swaths of purple dimples — all of it so unabashedly, intentionally and full-heartedly alive.
Since light itself is the guest of honor in the land of the midnight sun, it makes perfect sense that summer solstice is essentially the state’s season-long gala celebration.
So, yep: I'd say Alaska wins the award for putting the soul in solstice.
Pictured above: A summertime panorama in Homer, Alaska, that looks like someone just did its makeup.
