Return of the sun

“The ‘Day of the Sun’ is when the sun first shines on Sólgata. On that day, I bake pancakes,“ says Lilja Sigurgeirsdóttir. Lilja lives in a small, red, 120-year-old house on Sólgata 2 (which in Icelandic means ‘Sun Road’) in the town of Ísafjörður in the Westfjords. Ísafjörður nests under the steep, almost vertical, mountains of Skutuls fjord that rise directly from the sea. In the winter months – from the end of November to the end of January – when the sun is low in the sky, the inhabitants of Ísafjörður spend their days in the shade of the mountains, without seeing the sun. On the shortest day of the year, the sun makes it over the horizon for less than three hours a day – from noon until it sets just before three o’clock in the afternoon. But even then, surrounded by mountains, the Ísafjörður locals won’t see it until a month later. The full Return of the sun NORÐUR journal story is available at Related YouTube playlists → Watch more NORÐUR Journal stories: Production credits: Directed, shot, and edited by: Haukur Sigurðsson (@haukursigurdsson) & Halla Mía (@hallamia) Drone aerials: Haukur Sigurðsson (@haukursigurdsson) Colour grading: Haukur Sigurðsson (@haukursigurdsson)