Sixty-five nights, eighty days. The calendar here is unlike anywhere else in America. In mid-November the sun sets and does not rise again for about 65 days — the polar night, when the aurora owns the sky at noon and the town runs on its own rhythm under streetlights and starlight. In late January the sun returns for minutes, then hours; by May it refuses to set at all, and for roughly 80 days Utqiaġvik lives in continuous daylight — midnight softball, midnight fishing, the Arctic Ocean glittering at 2 a.m. Even football bends to the latitude: the Barrow Whalers play on a field a few dozen yards from the Arctic Ocean, the northernmost gridiron in the world, sometimes under the midnight sun and sometimes racing the coming dark.
The polar night lasts about 65 days — the sun sets in mid-November and rises in late January; the midnight sun then runs about 80 days from May into August.
Why People Visit Barrow Alaska
- Visit the Iñupiat Heritage Center, the cultural museum holding exhibits on 1,500 years of Iñupiat history, whaling, and contemporary Iñupiaq community life.
- Drive to Point Barrow, 9-12 miles north of town, the northernmost point of US land where the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas converge — a major marine-mammal migration corridor.
- See the Whalebone Arch on the Arctic Ocean shore, the iconic bowhead-jaw landmark and photo stop.
- Tour the Birnirk archaeological site, a National Historic Landmark featuring 16 prehistoric Thule-culture dwelling mounds dating to roughly 500 CE.
- Walk the tundra boardwalk for migratory birds, snowy owls, and the brief summer wildflower bloom across the permafrost coastal plain.
- Visit the Will Rogers and Wiley Post Monument, marking the 1935 plane-crash site of the American humorist and pioneering aviator.
- Observe the aurora borealis from September through March on clear nights — the long polar darkness makes Barrow one of the best aurora-viewing locations in the world.
