I certainly wasn’t suggesting Alaskans live without furnaces or like Chaplin in “The Gold Rush.” My greatest curiosity is the idea of living in darkness for part of the year and then living with the sun for the rest. I’m still gobsmacked that in Paris the sun doesn’t go down until 11pm in summer, lol. It’s probably because I don’t get to travel as much as I’d like and I’m interested in parts of the USA that seem quite different than the Northeast.
You have to go north of the Arctic Circle to have it dark all the time in the winter. Here, the sun is LOW, but we still get plenty of sunny days and lots of outdoor fun to take advantage of it. In the summer, on the other hand, we don't sleep much. Just enough to charge our batteries to go back out and fish some more. LOL! Most old-timers put aluminum foil over the bedroom windows to keep out the light. We get pretty ingenious at closing light leaks, in order to provide a DARK night for good sleep. :o)