Midnight. Morning. A shard of sun cuts through the cloud. Due north, not east, from my lighthouse. Gulls scream below us as they circle Flatøy fyr, our uninhabited island near Nordskot, northern Norway. We are on our own here for a few days, just me and the photographer Howard Sooley. We are 300km inside the Arctic Circle. Standing on top of the world.

I have been getting up around dawn for a year or more, absorbing the daybreak and recording it. I am writing a book, a manifesto for morning, about why it means so much to me, the change from night to light, making time to be (by) yourself. So I’ve come north for the summer solstice to see if there can be dawn without dark, if morning needs the night-time at all.

The last time I was in Nordskot it was Arctic winter. Dimmed daylight only from 11am until 2pm. In this small coastal community nestled into mountains, winter sun never reaches the horizon. The only way to see it is out at sea. People wait on the quay, anxiously ask after it like looking for a lost child. But now it is midsummer in the land of midnight sun. For months, the sun will never set. So we are here for the empty islands and the lighthouse and endless days without night.

Except, of course, it is raining, cold and cloudy. There is still snow and almost no sunlight at midnight and I am very tired and wet. We’ve just arrived in a small open boat, freezing water soaking us.

We walk up through a bog cotton meadow, the seed heads lit like Einstein’s hair. We drink whisky on a cliff facing the near north pole. It has been a long journey, we have had to carry a week of water up the lighthouse tower. Bed calls from our wooden cabins.

But there are no sheets to add to no running water, my duvet’s torn and smells of fish. It is our fault, we forgot to ask.

Sleep is elusive. My lace curtains are useless. North-country Norwegians are tough, to be seen out fixing their houses in the middle of the night, manically making the most of the short summer.

It is bright at 3am and I wake at 4am wondering whether here was such a good idea. Then I look out and see a sea eagle, standing 20ft away, profiled like a carving. It stretches huge wings and takes a long, lazy loop around the island. My concerns fly away.

Over the next days, we unwind. The landscape is almost too perfect, the colours of the clovers too pink, the silvers of the birch almost blue. It is an ozone thing I think. Everywhere is undisturbed, the growing miniaturised like a Japanese garden. It is almost prehistoric, an insight into a world before or after man.

We catch fish from the quay. It is almost too easy. We hook a stunning golden cod, shiny like a coin. We release it but keep some silvered pollock. We eat them in the lantern room, our 360-degree high window on the world. We walk, we watch, we absorb astonishing light. We become saturated with 24-hour sun.

But we are feeling the need for baths, bigger beds and better blinds so transfer to Villa Haugen, 20 minutes back by open boat to the neighbouring island of Grøtøya. We wallow in good food, good showers and sheets. Haugen is a luxury boutique hotel near to Nordskot, now owned by an oil executive. It was once home to the richest woman in northern Norway, her fortune built on skrei, migratory cod on their 1,000-mile journey to the Lofoten islands near here. Hundreds of ships would wait for them in the harbour.

We cook dinners on the beach from fish caught from the hotel boat. These are pristine waters still teaming with cod, home to fields of queen scallops swimming like monarch butterflies. Just don’t expect Roddie Sloan, the lone diver in the area, to tell you where. He supplies Noma and like all good fishermen guards his secrets deep. But there are brown trout in the lakes, sea trout in the rivers. There are wild orchids in the woods. It is the definition of unspoilt.

Every night (if there is such a thing, I am beginning to wonder), we sit late by the barbecue, watching savage Arctic skuas and an array of eagles. The sun never drops. Perhaps it stops for a moment, levels, then starts (you think) to rise. At around 2am, the small birds sing, a dawn chorus with a less obvious dawn. It may be more obviously morning than moments before.

It is almost bipolar the effect of polar light; you sleep but in short shifts, feel almost manic in the morning, lit by an urgency of time. I am unsure that I could do well for too long in the endless days and nights.

The last time I was here I saw northern lights staining the white mountains, greening the clear fjords, the sky dancing to a symphony I couldn’t quite hear. This time I came in search of dawn: could it exist without night? Could dawn be an idea, almost a philosophical thought? How would the birds know when to sing, flowers when to bloom, people when to wake? I came away with answers I am unsure I yet understand.

Science will tell you the sun is up all day, that it rises at the same time it sets. But you feel a shift as the new day inhales and the old day fails. Breathe deep in this empty world of endless days, almost untouched seas and beaches, an almost abandoned lighthouse. It is a place to wander in wonder, to find your peace in quiet.

Getting there

Norwegian Air and SAS fly from the UK to Bodø via Oslo. Transfer by fast passenger boat or car to Nordskot. The lighthouse can be contacted via Flatoyfyr.com/79033467, from NOK300 (around £28) a night. Villahaugen has doubles from from NOK2,475 (£230), including breakfast

Morning. How to Make Time: A Manifesto by Allan Jenkins is published by 4th Estate on 22 March at £12.99. To order a copy for £11.04, including UK p7p, go to guardianbookshop.com

Three more adventures in the midnight sun

Reykjavík, Iceland What better way to enjoy perpetual light in Iceland’s summer months than a midnight run? This popular sporting event in the capital has been going strong since 1993. You can run 5k, 10k or a half-marathon. This year it’s being held on the summer solstice, 21 June, when daylight lasts almost a full 24 hours; the sun sets after midnight and rises before 3am. The race starts late in the evening, near Laugardalslaug, one of Reykjavík’s geothermal pools. After your run, you can enjoy a dip in one of the hot tubs and steam baths in the early hours – all in broad daylight of course. marathon.is/midnight-run

Svalbard, Norway One of the world’s northernmost inhabited areas, Svalbard is an archipelago between the north pole and mainland Norway. From late April until August the sun doesn’t set at all and hangs instead just above the horizon which makes it an ideal time to see the polar bears. The all-night visibility increases your chances of spotting them, and the archipelago begins to melt, making it easier to navigate by boat. naturalworldsafaris.com

St Petersburg, Russia From late May until July, St Petersburg is bathed in an all-night luminous light known as the White Nights. Understandably the switch from dark and freezing winter nights into extended daylight is something to celebrate – which is why St Petersburg’s White Nights festival came into being. It’s a month of cultural events ending with the Scarlet Sails: the biggest annual public gathering in Russia, including a mock pirate battle in the harbour and an extravagant firework display. wnfestival.com