Midsummer’s Eve

“if we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumbered here, while these visions did appear”

-Puck, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’

At home, in Edmonton, I always loved the summer solstice. In Canada, the summer solstice is treated like a bit of trivia – (did you know it’s the longest day of the year today? the ‘official’ start of summer?) but in Sweden it is a holiday that is second only to Christmas (Jul in Swedish).

Since Scandinavia was one of the last places in Europe to become Christianized, the Nordic people still maintain the primarily pagan roots of many of the major religious holidays ie. celebrating Jul (or Yule) instead of ‘Christmas’, as well as the celebration of Midsummer. In many countries throughout the world, Midsummer is still celebrated as the Christianized celebration the Day of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist (think Saint-Jean-Baptiste day in Quebec), but Sweden remains one of the few countries that have maintained the name ‘Midsummer’ for this holiday, thus preserving it’s pagan roots.

Collectively called ‘Midsummer’ the Swedes celebrate Midsommarafton (Midsummer’s Eve) on the Friday before the solstice, and Midsommardagen (Midsummer’s Day) the following day. The main festivities take place on Friday for Midsommarafton.

In Umeå, we decided to take in the traditional celebration of Midsommarafton at the living museum ‘Gammlia’ (it’s Umeå’s version of Fort Edmonton). I think everyone in the entire city of Umeå was at Gammlia this afternoon. Families were sprinkled throughout the grounds, sitting on blankets having picnics, waiting for the midsommarstång (a maypole/fertility pole covered in wreaths of flowers and leaves) to be raised. It is tradition for women and small children to wear wreaths of leaves and flowers on their heads, so I course I made one and wore it most of the day! Once the pole was raised, everyone formed a circle around it and danced and sang songs. Mostly it was for small children, where the songs (although in Swedish) I think involved imitating a frog, a pig, an elephant etc.

Later that night, since it was the longest day of the year and our first solstice in Umeå, we definitely wanted to stay up all night long (night only lasts 3 hours! sunset at 11:07pm and sunrise at 2:14 am). So we joined some friends from my work for a bonfire at the lake Nydala just on the edge of Umeå. Bonfires are also a tradition of Midsummer, as is an evening meal of herring, new potatoes with sauce, and fresh strawberries. Our meal was semi-traditional: we had hotdogs, marshmallows, peppermint tea, fresh strawberries and melon. People were celebrating all around the lake, and some groups had even rented saunas (saunas are a big deal here), which look like little wooden houses floating out on the middle of the lake.

The best part of midsummer was staying up all night, and experiencing how it never gets dark here. It is not midnight sun, because the sun does technically go down, but it really only just dips below the horizon. (The picture of the tree was taken at 2 am). It has been like that here for at least a month now, so I guess that means now we have one more month of almost constant light before we start losing sunlight. We joked that the Swedish tradition of getting incredibly drunk on Midsummer’s Eve was a reaction to the thought that it is a rapid downhill slope from Midsummer into (almost) complete darkness for a few months.

I feel like Scott and I are ready for this decline though. Having weathered a lifetime of winters in Edmonton, the beautiful long nights of summer always seemed worth the price of suffering through a long, cold, dark winter. He who has never tasted what is bitter does not know what is sweet.

Besides, I really don’t know if I could ever live in a place where the sun sets at 6 o’clock all year round.