Winter Solstice in Whitehorse at 38 below
This post was spurred by Facebook Memories, which yesterday morning showed that I go out for Winter Solstice drives often, sometimes as far as the White Pass or Kluane Lake. With the temperature sitting at -38°C, I wasn’t going to do a long drive, but the city offers great photo ops at that sort of temperature, as well as the Solstice interest.
Sunrise wasn’t going to happen until 11:09, by which time I would have been out of bed for 7 hours and about ready for a nap, but air that cold wakes you up in a hurry 🙂
I left the house at 09:40 to get the dawn light. The Alaska Highway was very quiet as expected, but I expected people to be out Christmas rush-ing by 11:00 or so.
My first stop was at the diesel section of the Yukon Energy facility that supplies our electricity. I took a photo of the LNG plant too, but it was blurry.
Because the Yukon River and it’s headwater tributaries freeze, the water still flowing can’t produce enough electricity, but the low flow of water is surprisingly efficient. Here’s the current production by the hydro turbines and the diesel and LNG generators.
Just past Yukon Energy, I was very surprised to see the gate at Robert Service Campground open, the road plowed and the main building all lit up – this required a U-turn.
There’s still open water on the river below the dam (for a couple of miles, I expect), which results in a lot of localized ice fog. It was now 10:24.
My main target for the day was the high point on Wickstrom Road that looks over the river and city, with Golden Horn, the mountain that I live at the foot of, in the distance. I simply never tire of that view. A breeze from the north helped greatly to improve the visibility at this location.
Looking downriver from that spot, with Shipyards Park in the centre of the view.
On the way back to town I made some stops – first to get some photos of The Wharf, a very popular spot on warmer days.
The main Yukon government building, which I consider to be the ugliest legislative building I’ve seen anywhere in the world (it’s much nicer inside, though).
From there I drove up Grey Mountain Road to the viewpoint, expecting to see smoke from wood stoves coming out of many chimneys. That wasn’t the case, though, so the photo wasn’t what I hoped for.
Before crossing the bridge back to downtown I detoured to the hospital. Nothing particular notable except that it was very quiet at 10:40.
It’s rare to see 4 ambulances at their station. That seems like a good thing.
The next destination was Yukon University – a spot over by the Arts Centre has a great view over the city, though for some reason I haven’t been there in years. On the way I stopped in at the SS Klondike, where two tour vans had people taking photos. I also detoured a bit to The Horse, but a tour bus had a whole lot of people out taking photos.
The Yukon University site didn’t work out – snowshoes are required to get to it as nobody has broken a trail. The next photo was shot at 11:19 from as close to it as I could get.
Béla Simó’s sculpture “Reborn,” created in 2000, is even more lovely in the winter. The Yukon Arts Centre says “A human face emanates from a bud-like form in Béla Simó’s outdoor, marble sculpture, Reborn. With eyes closed deep in thought, the figure gently rests its pronouned right hand in a protective position over its chest. The elusive figure exists perpetually in contemplation as an extension of the two-tiered blossom. Seemingly halted in transition, Simó has created a moment that reflects on the interconnectedness of human existence and the natural world.”
I then headed back towards my Wickstrom Road viewpoint to get a photo right at noon. Mountainview Drive provided a decent view of the sun about to come over the ridge at 11:25.
The next two photos were shot at 11:45.
The final photo was shot right at noon. This is quite deceiving, though, due to our completely illogical time zone – solar noon, which is normally close to clock noon, was at 1:58 pm. I was going to go back and get a photo at solar noon, but clouds moved in for a while. I might get out and get that shot today – the sun should drop behind the mountains at about that time so I might get both noon and sunset photos 🙂
Here we are on the day after Winter Solstice. The extra daylight coming now starts off very slowly – today’s daylight length is only 8 seconds longer than yesterday’s, but you can see in the “Daylength/Diff.” column below how fast it ramps up (see a much larger image here). The maximum daily changes happen in mid-March when it peaks at 5 minutes, 38 seconds longer per day. The daylight length will peak on June 20, 2026, when it will be 19 hours, 9 minutes and 14 seconds long. From June 15-27 there is officially no night, only twilight.
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