Barrow welcomes back the sun

This week, the residents of Barrow, Alaska, greeted the sun’s return after after 66 days. To honour the occasion, tacos at Pepe’s North of the Border restaurant, normally $3 to $3.50, sold for $1.02 from noon to 2 p.m.

Children at the Ipalook Elementary School drew suns and wrote about the sunrise, while the three- to four-year-olds had a “Welcome Back to the Sun” luau, principal Glenn Olson told the Anchorage Daily News.

The sun actually rose for an hour and 15 minutes, setting at 2:17 p.m. On May 10, the sun will rise again and won’t set until Aug. 2.

“By the end of the month, we hit 14 minutes of daily gain,” said Donavon Price, head of the National Weather Service’s station at Barrow. “It will be a 10-minute gain for most of the rest of the time until we’re nearing the point in May where it’s up all the time.”