What life is like in ‘the darkest place on Earth’ where the sun doesn’t rise for months at a time
When the clocks go back in the autumn and the winter sunset returns, it can feel like you’re constantly living in darkness.
We venture to work in the dark and by home time, the sunlight has disappeared again - but there is a corner of the world where they actually don’t see the Sun for four months of the year.
The darkest place on Earth is located north of mainland Europe, and is a group of Islands in the Arctic Ocean known as Svalbard.
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There, they experience their final sunset of the year in October and it will be March before daylight returns.
Documenting the polar night on her YouTube channel, Cecilia Blomdahl calls the island home and shares her life through videos to show what it is like to live through the winter.
In a recent video, she said:“Our island is located so far north that the tilt of the Earth hides us from the Sun for four months, leaving us in a complete darkness for over two of those months.
“For the last time at the end of October and ever since then, our days have grown darker and now there’s no visible difference between day or night, leaving us in a long polar night.”
She goes on to add: “There are not a lot of changes to our lives during this season, we basically just kind of embrace the darkness.
“We cozy up inside or we go on moonlit hikes because it’s a long season, there’s no use in complaining about it but I personally love the dark of the polar night.
“I find it so cozy and it’s so wild that this is a thing.”
Going about her day, Blomdahl takes the viewers with her as she plays with her pet Husky in the dark, goes grocery shopping and even gets her nails done.
Standing by a polar bear warning sign in a clip, Blomdahl says that it marks the end of the village, adding: “This is basically the point where you need to bring polar bear protection, which is a firearm of some sort.”
Interestingly, there is also a ‘doomsday’ vault located on the island which is co-owned by the Norwegian government and has caused several internet conspiracy theories to spread.
It’s located on a mountainside on Spitsbergen and is now open to the public for them to have a peek inside.
It’s home to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault which has an incredible 1,214,827 seed samples from countries all over the world to prevent crop species from being permanently wiped out.
Now, the collection of islands is currently experiencing a midnight sun, where the Sun won’t set all summer.
Residents are probably making the most of it and soaking up the rays before the long nights return this autumn.