North Pole 2010—Day 01—Oslo

The weather in Chicago is just getting nice. The cold snow and gray skies are giving way to irises pushing through the dirt and cardinals in the treetops. I banged out the taxes and filled my bag with my gear for one of the harshest environments on Earth—the North Pole. To be clear, I am referring to the geographical North Pole, as in the place where the wire comes out of the classroom globe and connects to the stand. This is sometimes confused with the magnetic north pole, that drifts around in the general vicinity of the farthest north reaches of Canada and to which your compass points. It is also not the town in Alaska that goes by the same name. The geographic North Pole is the very top of the Earth, where the lines of longitude converge and the rings of latitude shrink to an infintessimally small point at 90º North.

 To stand at the North Pole is akin to being a character in a high school geometry problem. The place literally exists as a point on the surface of a sphere (though the Earth only approximates a sphere). It has no real dimension and is distinct from the South Pole in that it is not even on land. To get to the North Pole, you must go to the exact center of the Arctic Circle, essentially right in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. The nearest land is some 500 miles away in Northern Siberia, Greenland or Canada. I am looking out the window of the airplane at southern Norway. There is still snow on the ground and ice on the lakes. It is a short hop from Copenhagen to Oslo, Norway, where I will begin the adventure. Tomorrow, I will fly to the icy island of Spitsbergen and put my winter clothing on for a few more weeks before returning to the warm Spring in Chicago. It’s hard to believe that a few hours ago, I was at home in Chicago and in a few days, I’ll be at the top of the planet. What would Peary have thought of it?

 Coming tomorrow: Why go?