50 Fun Facts About North Pole

Unlike the South Pole, the geographic North Pole sits on what?

There is no land at all; the nearest, Kaffeklubben Island off northern Greenland, is about 700 km away.

How deep is the ocean directly beneath the North Pole, as measured by a Russian submersible in 2007?

The Mir submersibles that took the sounding also planted a one-metre titanium Russian flag on the seabed on 2 August 2007.

How many times a year does the sun rise at the North Pole?

It climbs above the horizon around the March equinox, stays up all summer, and sets around September for six months of darkness.

Kaffeklubben Island, the nearest land to the North Pole, lies off which territory?

The tiny Danish-Greenlandic island beats Canada's Cape Columbia by a few kilometres for the title of northernmost land.

Which American sponsored the 1926 airship flight that first verifiably reached the North Pole?

Ellsworth flew aboard the Norge with Amundsen and Umberto Nobile on 12 May 1926; the same trio's Italian designer would crash the airship Italia two years later.

Which American explorer's claim to have reached the North Pole on 6 April 1909 remains disputed?

His rival Frederick Cook claimed to have got there a year earlier with two Inuit companions, but could produce no convincing proof either.

Which African-American explorer on seven Peary voyages said his footprints were first at the 1909 'Pole'?

Congress gave him a duplicate of Peary's medal in 1944, and in 1988 he was reburied at Arlington National Cemetery beside Peary.

The first surface expedition confirmed to reach the North Pole, in April 1968, travelled by what?

Ralph Plaisted's team of four Minnesotans and a Canadian rode Ski-Doos; a year later Wally Herbert's party became the first to arrive on foot.

The first vessel to reach the North Pole passed underneath it on 3 August 1958. What was it?

The world's first nuclear submarine made the transit during Operation Sunshine; USS Skate became the first to surface at the Pole the following March.

The first surface ship to reach the North Pole, in 1977, was a nuclear icebreaker from which country?

Arktika smashed through on 17 August 1977; a Russian ice camp, Barneo, has been set up by air near the Pole every spring since 2002.

In 1990 Børge Ousland and Erling Kagge became the first explorers to reach the North Pole how?

They hauled everything from the start with no resupply or dogs; both Norwegians went on to reach the South Pole as well.

Ann Bancroft became the first woman to reach the North Pole on foot and by sled in which year?

She was on the Steger International Polar Expedition; she later led the first all-female team to ski to the South Pole.

What became of Salomon August Andrée's 1897 hydrogen-balloon expedition to the North Pole?

The balloon flew for 65 hours before icing forced it down; the three men trekked to Kvitøya, where a Norwegian expedition found their bodies, diaries and photographic negatives 33 years later.

Fridtjof Nansen's plan for reaching the North Pole in the 1890s was to do what with his ship Fram?

The drift did not pass over the Pole, so Nansen and Johansen struck out on skis and reached a record 86°13.6' N before retreating to Franz Josef Land.

Which polar pioneer vanished in 1928 while flying to search for the airship Italia's crew?

Umberto Nobile's airship had come down returning from the Pole; the rescuer's plane vanished over the Barents Sea and was never found.

What did the Arktika 2007 expedition leave on the seabed at the North Pole?

The one-metre flag was planted by the submersible Mir-1 at a depth of 4,261 metres, and prompted protests from Canada and Denmark over Arctic claims.

What time zone is used at the North Pole?

All lines of longitude meet there, so every time zone is equally valid; teams usually keep Greenwich Mean Time or the time of their home base.

Which explorer first located the north magnetic pole in 1831?

He found it at Cape Adelaide on Canada's Boothia Peninsula; it has since wandered hundreds of kilometres and is now heading for Siberia.

In the 2000s and 2010s, the north magnetic pole drifted toward Russia at about what speed?

The speed jumped in the 1990s, forcing early updates to the World Magnetic Model that phones and ships rely on.

The Arctic Ocean, which surrounds the North Pole, ranks how among the world's five oceans by size?

At about 14 million square kilometres it is also the shallowest, hemmed in by Russia, Norway, Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Iceland.

The Arctic Circle, the line beyond which the midnight sun occurs, sits at roughly what latitude?

Land inside it is shared by eight countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the US, Canada, Denmark (Greenland) and Iceland, which only just makes it via the island of Grímsey.

How many countries have land inside the Arctic Circle?

Iceland only just qualifies, through the small offshore island of Grímsey; the others are Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the US, Canada and Denmark via Greenland.

Polar bears are the largest land carnivores on Earth. What colour is their skin under the fur?

The black skin absorbs heat and the guard hairs are hollow and unpigmented; they are classed as marine mammals because they depend on the sea ice.

Which of these animals would you NOT find anywhere near the North Pole?

Penguins live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere; the only species that strays north of the equator is the Galápagos penguin.

Reindeer, Santa's supposed sleigh-pullers, are unique among deer in what way?

In North America the same species is called caribou; its range circles the whole Arctic from Scandinavia through Siberia to Canada.

The idea that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole is often credited to which 19th-century illustrator?

His 1866 Harper's Weekly drawing was captioned 'Santa Claussville, N.P.', and a later poem placed the home 'near the North Pole, in the ice and snow'.

What postal code has Canada Post assigned to Santa Claus at the North Pole?

It spells out Santa's laugh; volunteers answer more than a million letters a year in dozens of languages, including Braille.

The town of North Pole, Alaska, near Fairbanks, is how far from the actual geographic North Pole?

Its streets include Santa Claus Lane, St. Nicholas Drive and Kris Kringle Drive, the streetlights are striped like candy canes, and its post office gets hundreds of thousands of letters to Santa.

A gift shop in North Pole, Alaska, boasts the world's largest fibreglass statue of which figure?

The Santa Claus House grew out of a trading post; local streetlights are painted as candy canes year-round.

Finland's Santa Claus Village sits on the Arctic Circle near which city?

The village opened in 1980 and includes a post office where visitors can read letters sent to Santa; Norway, for its part, claims he lives in Drøbak.

Which retailer's misprinted 1955 phone-number ad led to NORAD's annual Santa tracking?

Children in Colorado Springs ended up ringing the Continental Air Defense Command, where Colonel Harry Shoup reportedly played along; NORAD took over in 1958.

Who plays Santa in the 2003 film Elf?

Newhart is Papa Elf and narrator, Caan is Buddy's biological father in New York, and Favreau directed.

Which actor played multiple roles, including the conductor, in The Polar Express (2004)?

Zemeckis directed, adapting Chris Van Allsburg's 1985 picture book, and the human characters were built from motion capture.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created in 1939 as a promotional booklet for which department store chain?

Copywriter Robert L. May wrote it; his brother-in-law Johnny Marks turned it into the song Gene Autry took to number one at Christmas 1949.

Frederick Cook claimed to reach the North Pole in April 1908, before Peary. Who was with him?

Cook could produce no convincing proof, and his reputation collapsed further when his earlier claim to have climbed Denali was also debunked.

Wally Herbert's British expedition of 1969 was the first to reach the North Pole how?

They then carried on across the whole Arctic Ocean to Svalbard, a 16-month, 3,800-mile journey.

Who runs Barneo, the temporary ice camp near the North Pole each spring since 2002?

It lasts a few weeks in April, serving tourists, scientists and the runners of the North Pole marathon.

The Norwegian who reached the North Pole by airship in 1926 had first reached which landmark on 14 December 1911?

He beat Robert Falcon Scott by five weeks; he had also been first through the Northwest Passage, in 1903-06.

How many men were aboard the airship Norge when it reached the North Pole on 12 May 1926?

The 16-man crew included the airship's Italian designer Umberto Nobile and an American backer who paid for the flight.

Which polar bear range country is home to Svalbard, where the bears famously outnumber people?

Their range also covers Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Russia; the bears follow the sea ice, which is why they are classed as marine mammals.

The 1958 submarine that first crossed the North Pole underwater was under the command of whom?

Anderson later served four terms in Congress; James Calvert commanded USS Skate, which surfaced at the Pole the following year.

Which US submarine became the first naval vessel to surface at the Pole, on 17 March 1959?

It broke through the ice from below, seven months after a sister boat had passed beneath the Pole without surfacing.

Which British naval officer reached 82°45′ North on an 1827 Pole attempt?

Many 16th-century thinkers already believed the Pole lay in open sea, and hoped a passage through the floes could be found.

Who skied north with Nansen in April 1895, reaching 86°14′ before turning back?

The pair wintered on Franz Josef Land after abandoning the attempt, which still set a Farthest North record.

In 1982 Ranulph Fiennes and Charles Burton became the first people to do what?

They left Cape Crozier on Ellesmere Island on 17 February and reached the geographic Pole on 10 April.

How thick is the sea ice at the North Pole typically?

Thickness, extent and the amount of open water all swing rapidly with weather and climate, and retreating ice reflects less sunlight.

How many Arctic countries surround the Pole, each limited to a 200-nautical-mile zone?

Under international law nobody owns the Pole itself; Denmark's stake comes via Greenland.

In 1907 Canada claimed a wedge stretching from its coast to the Pole by invoking what?

The claim was never relinquished but was not consistently pressed until 2013.

Just before which event does the Sun rise at the North Pole each year?

It then takes three months to climb to its highest point, only about 23.5° above the horizon.

Mandaeans, who regard the Pole and Polaris as auspicious, face which way when praying?

Their temples are oriented the same way; in Mandaean cosmology the opposite direction is associated with darkness.