2000 Alaska Goldpanners
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Midnight Secrets
June 22, 2000, Daily News-Miner

Even this time of year, untold millions of people across the globe visualize Interior Alaska as a cold and dark place. Many of those same people fancy our landscape is permanently colored in forbidding shades of blue and white, a place only wolves and polar bears might find inviting.

The vast majority of those folks were probably sleeping last night when Fairbanksans turned out in droves to play and shop past midnight downtown.

Those blissfully ignorant Outsiders might be astonished to hear the Alaska Goldpanners didn't even take the field for the start of the Midnight Sun Baseball Game until 10:30 p.m. Some might dismiss it as a gimmick or a publicity stunt, chuckling at the notion of a baseball game played in parkas and cold-weather boots. Would it change their minds to learn Wednesday's game has its roots in a celebrated contest between two bar-sponsored teams in 1906, making this the 95th annual staging of the local hardball classic?

None of the sleepers in southern latitudes heard the laughter of kids dashing through Golden Heart Park, or shrieking aboard the rides set up across the street, in the area closed to traffic for the festivities.

They weren't out nibbling on cotton candy near K-Mart off Airport Way, perhaps watching young couples take a slow spin on Golden Wheel's big Ferris wheel, or taking a shot at a carnival game.

They missed the shouts of volleyball players at the Howling Dog and Blue Loon saloons. They didn't glimpse the grins spreading across members of the golf party as they watched a fellow player shank one into the pond approaching hole No. 6 at Fairbanks Golf and Country Club.

How many folks from distant parts realize that in Fairbanks--during this marvelous season of light--dedicated golfers are out chasing white balls down the club's lush green fairways 24 hours a day?

If they happened to dream about Alaska at all, do you think those sadly uninformed souls pictured the silhouettes of great balloons touring the heavens as the clock passed midnight?

It's a pity they weren't around this morning at 12:47 a.m. savoring the rosy sunset that lit such a fire across the surrounding hills.

People who have experienced the warm, fleeting, twilight leading to dawn's 2:59 a.m. return know better than to dismiss this land of the Midnight Sun as a cold and dark place.

June 22, 2000, Daily News-Miner