Right beside the north door is a red shipping container. Right above the north door is a light. When it's dark out, the shipping container reflects and reddens the light and shines it underneath the door.

This time, though, I open the door - and let go of the handle in surprise. The wind catches the door and slams it into the shipping container.

"Holy shit," I say, the first thing I've said aloud all shift, and I mourn the unfortunate location of my camera - back in my room, a 15-minute drive away.

The sky has been heavy with clouds all evening, and the weather report called for rain.

Now, though, the northern horizon has cleared. I step past the shipping container and I can see the edge of the clouds arcing over the small clear area to the north. The rest of the sky is on fire, pink and orange; the heavy rain clouds coloured as if an overenthusiastic painter had thought a sunrise should cover the entire sky.

I walk out a little farther, and turn around. The orange continues almost all the way to the southern horizon.

The sun is not yet up, but it will be soon. I can see the lines its light makes in the clouds. It will come up just east of due north.

The sun sets shortly before midnight, just west of due north. I'm not inside the arctic circle, so the sun does actually set and get fully below the horizon on the longest day of the year. The sunset colours, though, are still there at midnight when I go for lunch, at 1AM when I get back from lunch... the sunset slides across the northern horizon and becomes the sunrise.

It doesn't get fully dark, this close to the summer solstice. It gets to late twilight - dark enough that you want headlights when driving, but not too dark to see what's around you.

I stare for a little while, until the hiss of the automatic valve tells me I have to open the backpressure valve to spare the pipes some bone-shaking water hammer.

Empty roads, empty rooms

Night shift is quiet. Excepting the cook in the cafeteria (at midnight lunch) and the dispatcher on the radio (when I'm driving to midnight lunch), I don't say a single word to another human for the duration of my shift.

Most services are closed on night shift. The mine still runs, and often the haul trucks are the only other vehicles I see.

The complex feels as empty at 3PM as it does at midnight, too. Midafternoon (or morning, to my body), and I have the place to myself.

It's a little creepy, sometimes. A 400 person camp and it feels deserted.

The cafeteria is open at midnight, but nearly empty. Sometimes I have to bang on the counter with my cutlery to get the cook's attention.

He told me to, one day. "You have to call: helloooo!!" he said, and banged his metal tongs on the metal counter. He grinned. "You're too quiet, I can't hear you."

He calls me "ma belle" and knows exactly what I want for breakfast. It's very handy when I'm on day shift and haven't woken up yet when I go to the cafeteria. I just have to stand in line and say "merci".

Eggs for supper

The cafeteria may be open 24 hours and serve a hot meal at midnight as well as noon, but the meal plan is geared for day shift workers - and like any cafeteria, you take what's offered or you don't eat.

Ham and eggs for supper I can handle. Steak, or spaghetti, or pizza for breakfast is a little harder to take. So I've fooled my body into accepting it by moving my free time to the beginning of my 'day' (3-5:30PM) instead of the end. That way I can scrounge something (usually a jam sandwich) from the between-meals selection and call that breakfast.

Breakfast, dinner... on night shift, I'm never quite sure whether I should call the 5:30AM meal, or the meal when I wake up, breakfast. I say "good morning" whenever I meet my co-worker for our shift-change meal. I'm sure to be right - it's morning for one of us, at least...

"Oh wait," I interrupted myself while talking to my boss' boss yesterday, when he came with me for the first couple of hours of my shift. "He did that at noon, not midnight. I'm on night shift."

It's Friday now, isn't it? I've lost track again.