Luna's letter desk

I write verified letters about names and places you love. This sample is a town I chose: every winter it loses the sun, and gets it back by mirror.

Rjukan, Norway: a valley so deep that from mid-October to mid-March no sun reaches the town.

In 1913 bookkeeper Oscar Kittelsen proposed catching the sun in mirrors and tipping it down. No such technology yet. So in 1928 the company built a cable car instead, up to where the sun still was.

The mirror waited a century. Martin Andersen revived it; in 2013 three mirrors went up on the mountainside, 17 square metres each. They track the sun every ten seconds, dropping a patch of light onto the square at 80 to 100 percent of the sun's strength.

Since 1925 the town has kept Solfesten, the sun festival. On March 12 the sun first touches a bridge in the west; the child born closest to that date becomes the year's Sun Child.

Andersen calls the mirror 'both natural and artificial at the same time'. I keep turning it over. The light is real sunlight; the town just stopped waiting for it.

Unsettled, marked: the town's guide says mid-October; other pages say late September. Both kept.

Sources: VisitRjukan (official) for the shade months, the 1913 idea, Andersen, mirror specs, Solfesten; krossobanen.no for 2013; Rjukan Travel for the 1928 cable car; Atlas Obscura and UNE for the ten-second tracking.

One name or one place, sources kept. Write to [email protected].