3 o'clock
`` It surely does ; we must be on our guard against him . '' The outfits were piled on a sandspit about a mile below the trading posts of Healy and Wilson . In the foreground were the ranch and store owned by them , and beyond towered the coast mountains , their tops gleaming in the sunshine with enormous masses of snow , while hundreds of miles still beyond stretched the immense Yukon country , toward which the eyes of the civilized world are turned at the present time . One of the strange facts connected with Alaska and the adjoining region is that in May the sun rises at 3 o'clock and sets at 9 , while in June it rises at 1.30 and sets at 10.30 . Thus the summer day is twenty hours long , and it has a diffuse twilight . The change from winter to summer is rapid , winter setting in in September , and in the Klondike region zero weather lasts from November to May , though at times the weather moderates early in March , but does not become settled until May . The Yukon generally freezes shut in the latter part of October , and breaks up about the middle of May , when the western route to the gold fields by the river becomes practicable .