North Pole...Where? ©

 

 

Everyone knows that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, but no one has ever found his workshop.  Maybe that’s because there are FIVE north poles and two of them are constantly moving!

 

Five north poles?  Oh wow!  No wonder Santa has stayed hidden all these years!  This is a mystery deeper than Oak Island’s Money Pit! 

 

North pole number one is the “Geographic North Pole”, number two is the “Magnetic North Pole”, three is the “Geomagnetic North Pole”, four the “North Pole of Inaccessibility” and lastly, number five, is the “North Pole of Greatest Cold”.  Under which one is Old Saint Nick’s workshop?

 

Let’s look at these five poles and maybe we will find a clue as to where Kris Kringle’s place is hidden.

 

The Geographic North Pole

 

The “Geographic North Pole”, also known as “True North”, or the “north celestial pole”, is the most northern point of the planet, the point around which the Earth spins on its axis.  It is found in the middle of the Arctic Ocean at 90^o North latitude.  The good news is that this point is easy to find, since Polaris, the North Star, is less than 1° away from true north.  The bad news is that the geographic north and south poles aren’t fixed points, because the Earth isn’t a perfect sphere and since it is instead an ellipsoid, it wobbles on its axis.

  

Unfortunately, true north isn’t the same as the magnetic north pole, and that is why you must adjust your compass to point in direction of geographic north pole when aligning a map with the landscape.  The declination of a map is the number of degrees of adjustment between true north and magnetic north needed, to correctly align your map and compass.

 

 

The Magnetic North Pole

The “Magnetic North Pole”, or the “North Magnetic Pole” as it is also known, is aligned with Earth’s magnetic field, and is located in the Northern Hemisphere, where that field is exactly vertical.  This point is in constant motion and is currently moving northwest towards Siberia at between 28 to 34 miles per year (45 to 54 Km per year).

 

Strangely enough though, the geographic north magnetic pole is actually the south pole of the gigantic dipole magnet that is planet Earth, which is why it attracts the north end of your compass!

 

The North Geomagnetic Pole

 

The geomagnetic poles are the points on the north and south of the
planet where the magnetosphere’s axis pass through the Earth.  Earth’s “North Geomagnetic Pole” is currently located near Ellesmere Island, Canada, 80.8^o north by 72.7^o west and used to be called the “North Wind Pole”.  Unlike a bar magnetic, Earth’s magnetic field is complicated, and it isn’t a perfect dipole, since its ends are not perfectly opposite each other.  However, this pole is relatively stable and has stayed in the same spot for many years and is also the home of the aurora borealis or northern lights.

 

The Northern Pole of Inaccessibility

 

The “Northern Pole of Inaccessibility”, which is also known as the “North Ice Pole”, is the only pole that is determined solely by geography.  Poles of inaccessibility are those places that are all as equally far from a coast, and therefore, as inaccessible as possible.  The northern pole of inaccessibility is located at 85^o, 48 minutes north latitude by 176^o, 9 minutes west longitude, and is equally distant from Ellesmere Island, Henrietta Island in the East Siberian Sea, and the Komsomolets Island in the Russian Arctic.  From the northern pole of inaccessibility, there is nothing but frigid sea water and pack ice for 626 miles (1,008 km) in any direction.

 

North Pole of Greatest Cold

 

The “North Pole of Greatest Cold” is the place in the northern hemisphere where the lowest air temperatures have been recorded.  Contrary to what you may imagine, the north pole of greatest cold, is not located at the geographic north pole, but is instead south of the north pole in Northern Siberia.

 

So, that is all of the five of the North Poles, which one do you think Father Christmas lives at?

 

Personally, I am betting that Santa’s workshop is at the north geomagnetic pole, on Ellesmere Island, northwest of the top of Greenland.  But just as no one is certain what is at the bottom of the Money Pit on Oak Island, no one can claim to know exactly where Papá Noel lives, so your guess is as good as mine.

 

Merry Christmas and I hope you have Happy Holidays!

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Winter Survival ...A Snow Pit©”, where we will talk about how to shelter from the wind in the winter.

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at BandanaMan Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

 

 

Sources

 

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Feerick, Jack; “Earth Actually Has Four North Poles”, December 28, 2020, [©2023 Kalmbach Media Co.], https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/earth-actually-has-four-north-poles, accessed November 24, 2023

 

Gabriel, Angeli; “Where is the North Pole, exactly? It depends”, [©2023 FOX News Network, LLC], https://www.foxweather.com/learn/where-is-the-north-pole, accessed November 24, 2023

 

Poynting, John Henry, and Thomson, Joseph John; A Textbook of Physics, Volume 4, [Charles Griffin and Company Limited, London, 1914], https://books.google.com/books?id=YL0KAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA343&dq=bar+magnetic+field+lines&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwisyZrRqqaDAxUfjIkEHebfCss4FBDoAXoECAwQAg#v=onepage&q=bar%20magnetic%20field%20lines&f=false, accessed December 23, 2023

 

Popular Mechanics, “Why Go To The Arctic?”, January 1931, Vol. 55, No. 1, page 28, https://books.google.com/books?id=reMDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Popular+Mechanics+Jan+1931&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiS9K2C36aDAxXqkokEHdFNBHQQ6AF6BAgHEAI#v=onepage&q=Popular%20Mechanics%20Jan%201931&f=false, accessed December 23, 2023

 

Popular Science, “Flyers Make First Air Map of North Magnetic Pole”, May 1931, page 45, https://books.google.com/books?id=ZigDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, accessed December 23, 2023

 

Wikimedia; A Christmas Carol, [London: Chapman & Hall, 1843], by Charles Dickens, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scrooges_third_visitor-John_Leech,1843.jpg, accessed December 23, 2023

 

Wikimedia; “Andrew_Revkin_of_The_New_York_Times_on_Sea_Ice_Near_the_North_Pole”, April 27, 2003, by Andrew Revkin, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrew_Revkin_of_The_New_York_Times_on_Sea_Ice_Near_the_North_Pole.jpg, accessed November 24, 2023

 

Wikimedia; “Arctic_Ocean_SV, G: Limits of the Arctic Ocean according to the CIA world factbook”, October 25, 2020, by Quentin Bernard, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Pole, accessed November 24, 2023

 

Wikimedia; “Baseplate compass”, Nov 10, 2023; by Dellant, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_declination#/media/File:Rotating_Dial_Compass.jpg, accessed November 24, 2023

 

Wikimedia; “Earth's magnetic field”, August 19, 2008, by JrPol, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Geomagnetisme.svg, accessed December 23, 2023