An Island in northern Norway to become the world’s first time-free zone. The Northern Hemisphere’s summer solstice to begin from June 21.
A village in Norway, Sommarøy, which means Summer Island, wants to replace its watches with flower garlands thus becoming the world’s time free zone. In this Norwegian island located in the western part of Tromsø Municipality in Troms county, north of the Arctic circle, the sun doesn’t set from May 18 to July 26 for 69 days.
From November to January, the sun does not rise at all on this island.
A media portal quoted Islander Kjell Ove Hveding as saying in a statement “There’s constantly (sic) daylight, and we act accordingly. In the middle of the night, which city folk might call ‘2 a.m.,’ you can spot children playing soccer, people painting their houses or mowing their lawns, and teens going for a swim.”
Locals of the island conducted a town hall meeting to sign a petition for a time free zone. Hveding met with a Norwegian member of parliament and handed over signatures of the locals which details the practical and legal challenges of the initiative. He says, “To many of us, getting this in writing would simply mean formalizing something we have been practicing for generations.”
They would be free from the traditional opening hours and flexible hours would be introduced in the schools. The island has just a little more than 300 people with the main industries being fishing and tourism. Hveding report states that the local fishermen and women spend hours together fishing as the sun does not set.
People who go to island from the mainland are greeted with padlocks symbolizing love locks on bridges, the bridge is covered with watches, as people enter the land to forget time. The Norwegian tourism board is expecting a spike in tourism with the unique natural occurrence of the land.
