Episode 28: Many North Poles
You Can Never Have Just One
Part 1 of Our Mini-Series “Home Planet Happenings”
After a lovely holiday season, Josh and Kara return to talk about Santa’s home—The North Pole! But what many may not know, is that there are in fact, multiple north poles, each with slightly different definitions and uses in the sciences. So join us this week as we explore the many north poles!
Discussion Includes:
Geographic Poles
Magnetic Poles
The Mythical North Pole
Explorations of the Poles
©Wolf & Stag Productions LLC, 2026Images:
All Images Are Used For Commentary, Analysis, and Education Purposes under the Fair Use Act
References:
Rees G, Headland R, Scambos T, Haran T. Finding the Arctic pole of inaccessibility. Polar Record. 2014;50(1):86-91. doi:10.1017/S003224741300051X
Poles and directions – australian antarctic program. Australian Government – Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water: Australian Antarctic Division | Australian Antarctic Program. (2020, October 27). https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/geography-and-geology/geography/poles-and-directions/
The magnificent nine. an overview of the Earth’s famous and not-so-famous poles. Strona główna - Edu Arctic. (n.d.). https://edu-arctic.pl/en/articles/the-magnificent-nine-an-overview-of-the-earth-s-famous-and-not-so-famous-poles
Eratosthenes measures earth | american physical society. (n.d.). https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2006/06/eratosthenes-measures-earth
A&E Television Networks. (2025, December 3). Roald Amundsen becomes first explorer to reach the South Pole | December 14, 1911. History.com. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/december-14/amundsen-reaches-south-pole
The race to the South Pole: Scott and Amundsen. Royal Museums Greenwich. (n.d.). https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/maritime-history/race-south-pole-scott-amundsen
By Olav Bjaaland (1863-1961)[1] - Amundsen, Roald: The South Pole (Vol II), London, John Murray 1912, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16210076
A&E Television Networks. (2025a, May 28). Northwest Passage. History.com. https://www.history.com/articles/northwest-passage
National Geographic Reverses, agrees adm. Peary missed North Pole - The Washington Post. (n.d.-b). https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/09/18/national-geographic-reverses-agrees-adm-peary-missed-north-pole/c96db90b-7e16-4d04-85b9-289a0b551870/
A&E Television Networks. (2025b, July 23). The Black Explorer who may have reached the North Pole first. History.com. https://www.history.com/articles/black-explorer-matthew-henson-north-pole
National Archives and Records Administration. (n.d.). Mystery of the arctic ice: Who was first to the North Pole. National Archives and Records Administration. https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2022/04/06/mystery-of-the-arctic-ice-who-was-first-to-the-north-pole/
Berman, E. (2015, August 31). The Mount McKinley Controversy: Who climbed denali first?. Time. https://time.com/4017660/mount-mckinley-denali-ascent-hoax/
US Department of Commerce, N. O. and A. A. (2013, June 1). Where is point nemo?. NOAA’s National Ocean Service. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/nemo.html
NASA. (2025, November 27). International Space Station. NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/reference/international-space-station/
Wall, M. (2025, November 2). Meet Point Nemo, where the International Space Station will die in 2030. Space. https://www.space.com/space-exploration/international-space-station/meet-point-nemo-where-the-international-space-station-will-die-in-2030
Poles of inaccessibility. UC Geography. (n.d.). https://legacy.geog.ucsb.edu/poles-of-inaccessibility/
Stefansson, V. (1920). The Region of Maximum Inaccessibility in the Arctic. Geographical Review, 10(3), 167–172. https://doi.org/10.2307/207749
Southern Pole of inaccessibility - antarctica. Poles of Inaccessibility. (2024, April 12). https://inaccessibility.net/southern-pole-of-inaccessibility/
Ceremonial pole markers: An Antarctic tradition | canadian geographic. (n.d.-a). https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/ceremonial-pole-markers-an-antarctic-tradition/
South pole marker. (n.d.). https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~drm7/photo/antarctica/pages/South%20pole%20marker.html
DeMerit, J. (2026, January 8). Week 1 at the Pole. IceCube. https://icecube.wisc.edu/news/life-at-the-pole/2026/01/week-1-at-the-pole-6/
The 2021 pole marker. (n.d.). https://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/2020marker.html
British Geological Survey 1998 - 2017 (c)NERC http://www.bgs.ac.uk mailto:www-bgs@bgs.ac.uk. (n.d.). The Earth’s magnetic field: An overview. Aurora over the North of Scotland. https://geomag.bgs.ac.uk/education/earthmag.html
Wandering of the geomagnetic poles. National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). (2025, April 14). https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/wandering-geomagnetic-poles
Sorkhabi, R. (2025, December 1). Pole shift: Recent research tries to explain why the magnetic north pole is going wild. AAPG. https://www.aapg.org/news-and-media/details/explorer/articleid/69409/pole-shift
Compass. Education. (n.d.). https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/compass/
Historical magnetic declination viewer. (n.d.). https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/maps/historical-declination/
Welcome to Santa Claus Village: Arctic Circle, rovaniemi Lapland. Santa Claus Village. (2025, December 25). https://santaclausvillage.info/
By Cavit - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49580032
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=660496
By Gaianauta - self-made using the technique described in Garcia-Castellanos, D., & U. Lombardo, 2007. Poles of Inaccessibility: a calculation algorithm for the remotest places on Earth. Scott. Geogr. J., 123, 227-233. Based on the coastline database of Wessel, P. & Smith, W. H. F. (1996) A global self-consistent, hierarchical, high-resolution shoreline database, Journal of Geophysical Research, 101, B4, 8741 – 8743. Lake shores are excluded., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3473092

