41 Fun Facts About North Pole

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

Shifting sea ice over deep ocean, which is why the North Pole is much warmer than the South Pole: the ocean stores heat, while Antarctica is high, icy land.

What did Russia's Mir submersibles leave on the seabed 4,261 metres beneath the North Pole?

A titanium flag, in August 2007; Canada's foreign minister scoffed, 'This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags.'

The sun rises just once a year at the North Pole, around which event?

The March equinox brings the Pole's one sunrise and the September equinox its one sunset, so each 'day' and 'night' there lasts about six months.

Which Gothic novel of 1818 is framed by an explorer's voyage toward the North Pole?

Frankenstein: Victor tells his tale to the explorer Robert Walton, and the book ends with the creature leaping onto an ice raft and vanishing into the dark.

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

Robert Peary took no one trained in navigation on his final dash, while rival Frederick Cook claimed to have got there a year earlier.

Which African-American explorer made seven Arctic expeditions, including the disputed 1909 push for the North Pole?

Matthew Henson's recognition came decades late: Congress gave him a medal in 1944, and in 1988 he was reburied at Arlington.

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

Snowmobile: insurance salesman Ralph Plaisted's party rode Ski-Doos, and a US Air Force weather plane confirmed their position at the Pole.

Which vessel first reached the North Pole, passing beneath it on 3 August 1958?

USS Nautilus slipped beneath the Pole on 3 August 1958, and within days President Eisenhower was handing out awards to its commander and crew.

Which star appears almost motionless overhead for anyone standing at 90 degrees north?

Polaris lines up almost exactly with Earth's axis, so it barely moves while the other stars wheel around it, which made it a fixed point for navigators.

What did Fridtjof Nansen plan to do with his ship Fram to reach the North Pole?

Let the ice carry it: Fram froze into the pack in 1893 and drifted for three years, and when it fell short Nansen set off for the Pole with dog sledges.

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

Roald Amundsen took off from Tromsø on 18 June 1928 in a Latham 47 flying boat to search for Nobile's crew; the plane disappeared over the Barents Sea, and only a float and a fuel tank were ever recovered.

Why do many airliners between North America and Asia fly over the North Pole?

It shortens the trip: the shortest path between the continents curves toward the Pole, though airlines could use it only once Russia opened its airspace after the Cold War.

What time zone is used at the North Pole?

Whatever suits the expedition: all lines of longitude meet at the Pole, so no time zone applies and teams keep whichever time is convenient.

Which explorer first located the north magnetic pole in 1831?

James Clark Ross located the north magnetic pole in northern Canada in 1831, but the pole has since drifted far from that spot.

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

Smallest: and so many rivers pour into it that its surface water is relatively fresh for an ocean.

What makes the Arctic Circle creep north by about 15 metres a year?

Changes in Earth's axial tilt: the tilt is slowly shrinking, but in about 10,000 years it will start growing again and push the circle back south.

The Arctic Circle runs across the small island of Grímsey, which belongs to which country?

Iceland: the circle is edging off the island, so the eight-tonne stone sphere that marks it was designed to be moved to follow the line.

What colour is a polar bear's skin beneath its fur?

Black: the skin soaks up heat, while the hollow guard hairs are actually colourless and only look white because they scatter light.

Which North Atlantic seabird was the first to be called 'penguin'?

Great auk: explorers later passed the name to southern birds that looked like it, and the great auk itself was hunted to extinction in the 1840s.

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

Females may grow antlers, and many cows keep theirs long after the big bulls shed, so the antlered reindeer still around in late winter are mostly cows and young bulls.

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

Thomas Nast: his drawings for Harper's Weekly became the basis for the modern image of Santa that most people picture today.

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

H0H 0H0 spells Santa's 'Ho ho ho', and the replies began decades ago, when postal employees started answering children's letters themselves.

About how far is the town of North Pole, Alaska, from the actual North Pole?

About 1,700 miles: the town near Fairbanks even sits about 125 miles south of the Arctic Circle, despite its street names and Santa Claus House.

Which actor plays Buddy, the human raised by elves at the North Pole, in the 2003 film Elf?

Will Ferrell: the film used forced-perspective camera tricks to make him look giant beside the elves who raised him.

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

Rovaniemi: the first building on that stretch of the Arctic Circle was a cottage put up for Eleanor Roosevelt's visit in 1950, and Santa's village grew around the spot.

Which retailer's 1955 Santa hotline ad is credited with starting NORAD's annual Santa tracking?

Sears: children dialling the ad's number reportedly reached Colonel Harry Shoup's air-defence hotline instead, and he played along.

Who plays Santa in the 2003 film Elf?

Ed Asner played Santa, and director Jon Favreau styled Buddy's North Pole as a homage to the Rankin/Bass stop-motion Christmas specials.

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

Tom Hanks: motion capture let him also play the boy, the boy's father, the hobo and Santa.

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

Robert L. May wrote the booklet for Montgomery Ward, which handed out more than 2 million copies in the first year, and his brother-in-law Johnny Marks later turned it into a hit song.

Who accompanied Frederick Cook on his disputed April 1908 journey to the North Pole?

Cook travelled with two Inuit men, Ahwelah and Etukishook, who later said they had never lost sight of land; his claim to have climbed Denali in 1906 was also debunked.

At the north magnetic pole, which way does a compass needle that can swing in any direction point?

Straight down: the magnetic field there dives vertically into Earth, which is why it is also called a dip pole.

What does the 'doomsday' vault tunnelled into a mountain on Svalbard safeguard?

Seed samples: it holds over a million, and when war shut a gene bank near Aleppo, its researchers withdrew their duplicates to rebuild the collection.

Which country has sovereignty over the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard?

Norway: the 1920 Svalbard Treaty recognised its sovereignty but gave citizens of every signatory equal rights to fish, hunt, mine and trade there.

What is a narwhal's long spiral tusk?

A tooth: it grows out from the upper jaw, and in medieval Europe narwhal tusks were prized as the horns of unicorns.

In which month does Arctic sea ice usually shrink to its lowest extent?

September: the ice keeps melting all summer, and open water left behind soaks up sunlight that the ice would have reflected.

Under US law, which category of animal are polar bears classified as?

Marine mammals: they depend on the ocean for their food, so they are protected alongside seals and whales under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

What polar first did Ranulph Fiennes and Charles Burton achieve in April 1982?

Reach both poles by surface travel: their Transglobe Expedition circled the globe from pole to pole along a meridian, using only surface transport.

About how thick is the sea ice at the North Pole?

About 2.5 m: the ice there is typically 2 to 3 metres thick, and nuclear-powered icebreakers have smashed through it all the way to the Pole since 1977.

Under international law, who owns the North Pole?

No country: in the 2008 Ilulissat Declaration, the five Arctic coastal states pledged to keep settling their claims under the existing law of the sea.

In 1907, what did Canadians begin invoking to claim Arctic territory up to the Pole?

The sector principle drew a wedge between two meridians meeting at the Pole, but the theory never won general acceptance as a basis for a claim.

At most, about how high above the horizon does the sun climb at the North Pole?

About 23.5°: the sun reaches that height only at the June solstice, and even with round-the-clock daylight, summer temperatures hover around freezing.