Summer Solstice Festivals.
Festivals celebrating the Summer Solstice take place all over Alaska, and vary by city as well as region. In Anchorage, the Annual AWAIC Summer Solstice Festival is held to benefit the Abused Women Aid in Crisis program. Held downtown in the Town Square’s flower-filled park, the Festival features live entertainment, craft booths selling unique, made-in-Alaska gifts, as well as a variety of local food vendors. It’s a great festival for a good cause!
Southwest of Anchorage, at the tip of the Kenai Peninsula, the tiny town of Seldovia hosts the Seldovia Summer Solstice Music Festival - two days of great folk music, workshops, entertainment and fun. Billed as Alaska’s secret paradise, Seldonia has retained much of its original beauty and character throughout the years, giving visitors a real glimpse of what small town Alaska is really like. Discover Seldovia and its Summer Solstice Music Festival, then discover the great natural beauty surrounding this little piece of paradise.
Fairbanks offers a full week of Summer Solstice celebrations, including:
• The Annual Midnight Sun Baseball Game, now in its 97th year. The game starts on Friday, June 21, at 10:30pm at Growden Memorial Park, takes a pause at Midnight, then continues on to conclusion without the beneft (or need) of anything except for natural light.
• The Midnight Sun Fun Run - the third-largest foot race in Alaska. The 10k run begins at 10pm, and attracts more than 3,000 runners from around the state, and the Lower 49.
• The Eagle Summit Gathering. Join the crowd on Eagle Summit, a mountaintop north of Fairbanks, and 107 miles up the Steese Highway, for a clear view of the Midnight Sun, which moves slowly across the horizon, but never quite touches the Crazy Mountains in the distance.
• The Midnight Sun Festival in downtown Fairbanks. The annual event is held on the day of the solstice, and features crafts, food, shopping, a street fair, and live entertainment. Many downtown stores stay open until midnight to accommodate the huge crowds that turn out for the event.
Juneau takes their Summer Solstice Celebration in a completely different direction with the Around Admiralty “Spirit of Adventure” Sailboat Race. Each year, the Juneau Yacht Club hosts the running of the “Spirit of Adventure – Around Admiralty Race”, a 200 mile sailboat race around the Admiralty Island National Monument. The Spirit of Adventure race is the longest inland water race on the West coast of North America. It starts and ends in Juneau, Alaska each year on the last Saturday before the summer solstice, which means that while there is night racing, it is never really very dark. The experience of watching the sailboats racing under a full moon, with the red of the sunset in the west and the glow of the dawn in the east, and the moon’s reflection on the surrounding snow-capped mountain peaks, all at the same time, is an experience that will likely remain with you for the rest of your life.
Discover Denali’s Favorite Season.
One of the most spectacular times of the year to visit the Denali National Park is during the Summer Solstice, when the Park enjoys great weather, continuous daylight, abundant wildflowers, and the remarkable beauty of the Alaska Range during the height of summer. Explore the Park for moose, caribou, Dall sheep, grizzly bear and wolves while traveling into this International Biosphere Reserve. Enjoy some of the more than six million acres that make up the Denali National Park & Preserve - a land area that is larger than the State of Massachusetts! Located in the heart of Alaska’s magnificent and rugged interior, the park is home to Mt. McKinley, North America’s highest mountain. Summer, at the time of the Solstice, is one of the most desirable, and beautiful times to be in Denali National Park.
