If astronomers are right, things get brighter after 10:11 a.m. on Saturday.
That’s when Edmonton reaches its winter solstice, the sun rising to its lowest height of the year, 13 degrees above the horizon.
“After that, the sun very slowly begins to move higher in the sky,” said Frank Florian, an astronomer and vice-president of programming at the Telus World of Science. “It starts to swing higher in the sky from day to day.”
By the time the summer solstice rolls around on June 21, the sun hits its high point of approximately 60 degrees.
There’s no Stonehenge equivalent in Edmonton, so the precise moment of the winter solstice will likely pass without notice. But even if Edmontonians aren’t glued to the skies or their watches, there are plenty of festivities to get through the darkest and coldest time of the year.
Heather Zwicker will be huddled over the iridescent glow of laptop, tablet and smartphone screens. The University of Alberta cultural studies professor is one of several researchers behind #YEGlongnight, a social media experiment to take a single-day snapshot of Edmonton from dusk Friday to Saturday.
Six months ago, Zwicker and her colleagues watched Edmontonians during the summer solstice, tweeting the #YEGlongday hashtag 1.2 million times on a day with a double rainbow and a flood in southern Alberta. She has even bigger hopes for a city at its wintry best. Apart from shoppers, partiers and revellers at Candy Cane Lane, Zwicker hopes #YEGlongnight will shine a spotlight on those don’t exactly feel the holiday spirit.
“There is a lot that goes on in the dark and the night,” said Zwicker. “People have all kinds of ways of living through that that are interesting and potentially communal.”
Those hoping to meditate on the spiritual interplay of darkness and light attended the Westwood Unitarian congregation’s 26th annual winter solstice service, held Friday night at City Hall.
Rev. Anne Barker says it’s natural to fall into a seasonal rhythm, regardless of creed. It’s no coincidence that Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s and a host of other holidays fall during the darkest days of the year.
“Each of the traditions, when you look at them, has a celebration that involves light,” Barker said. “I think it’s natural to our spirituality and especially to our northern culture.”
Barker’s congregation paused to honour the darkness, before celebrating the coming light through a new ceremony featuring battery-powered candles, since flames are verboten at City Hall.
To get through the darkness, Barker burns candles, turns on white and blue Christmas lights and soaks up as much natural sunlight as she possibly can. She also says it’s natural to slow down, huddle together and hibernate. Instead of hitting the malls, it might better to stay home and pore over seed catalogues, even if it’s hard to remember where those sunflowers and rhubarb stalks once stood.
Many struggle with loss and bitterness, but Barker insists the darkness is also good: a time of calm, quiet, solitude, with the promise of lighter times ahead.
“There are four seasons in the wheel of the year,” she said. “We try to keep that circular vision in front of people that the wheel continues to turn and the sun will always return, no matter how dark it is.”
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