It's The Longest Day Of The Year & The Latest Sunset In Canada Is After 11 PM

The more north you go, the later it is.
Senior Writer

Hello summer! The first day of the season is the longest day of the year in Canada and the sun doesn't set until after 11:00 p.m. in some places in the country. That's a long time to bask in the sunlight.

Summer officially arrives at 5:44 p.m. ET on June 20.

That's when the earth is at the point in its orbit where the north pole is at its maximum tilt toward the sun which results in the longest day and shortest night.

So, this day has the greatest period of sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere.

With the longest day of the year comes really late sunsets.

The more north you go, the later it is.

Yellowknife is the major city in Canada with the latest sunset and longest day. The sun rose at 3:39 a.m. this morning and will set at 11:38 p.m.

That's a whopping 19 hours and 59 minutes of sunlight.

In Whitehorse, the sunset is at 11:36 p.m. but there are only just over 19 hours of sunlight, nowhere close to Yellowknife's almost 20 hours.

Iqaluit has an earlier sunset time at 11:00 p.m. but a longer day than the capitals of the other two territories.

That's because the sun rose at 2:11 a.m. this morning.

In Edmonton, the sun sets at 10:07 p.m. today, almost 15 minutes later than Calgary because it's more northern.

After Alberta's capital, no other major city in the country has a sunset after 10:00 p.m.

The sun dips down below the horizon in Winnipeg at 9:40 p.m. on this first day of summer.

Then it's Vancouver which says goodbye to the sun at 9:21 p.m.

Fredericton has the latest sunset in Atlantic Canada just a minute earlier than Vancouver.

Then it's Regina at 9:13 p.m.

Charlottetown, Halifax, Toronto and St. John's all have sunsets today less than 10 minutes before 9:00 p.m.

Montreal is the major city in Canada with the earliest sunset.

At just 8:46 p.m. the sun sinks down.

Even though it's the first day of summer and there are heat warnings in some parts of the country, it still feels winter-ish in other places.

Newfoundland actually has frost advisories in place because the temperatures overnight will be close to zero.

  • Senior Writer

    Lisa Belmonte (she/her) is a Senior Writer with Narcity Media. After graduating with a Bachelor of Journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University), she joined the Narcity team. Lisa covers news and notices from across the country from a Canada-wide perspective. Her early coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic earned Narcity its first-ever national journalism award nomination.

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