Town Begins 65 Days of Darkness

BARROW, Alaska —  When the sun set in the nation’s northernmost town Wednesday, residents settled in for their long winter night--65 days to be exact, the National Weather Service reported.

The sun set Wednesday for the last time this year at 1:34 p.m. local time, said Chuck Evans of the weather service’s Barrow office. The year’s last sunrise had occurred just 44 minutes earlier, at 12:50 p.m. The next sunrise will be at 1:26 p.m. Jan. 22.

Even though the weather was clear enough to offer spectacular views of the year’s last sunrise and sunset, Barrow residents shrugged off the annual event, Evans added.

“Generally, it comes in and nobody really pays any attention to it,” he said. Barrow is a mostly Inupiat Eskimo community with about 3,200 residents.