ever wondered what it’s like at the north...
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MONDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2009
It’s cold. Right now it’s about 30 degrees below zero. It’s also dark at the top of the world. Today, the first day of winter, the North Pole is tilted farthest from the sun. The sun won’t shine there again until the end of March.
There is no land at the North Pole, but the Arctic Ocean is frozen so thick — about 10 feet deep in some places — that airplanes can land on the ice!
The ice drifts at a rate of about four football fields an hour, circling around the Arctic Ocean. Some ice may break away while other ice forms. The ocean below the ice is about two miles deep. While you may think of Santa and his crew as being the only people living
at the North Pole, there are people who live within the Arctic Circle. That’s the big area surrounding the North Pole; it includes land. Polar bears have been spotted around the North Pole, as have a type of whale called the narwhal. Male narwhals grow tusks that are almost nine feet long. Scientists don’t know for sure why they have these hornlike growths, but some people once believed the tusks to be magical. It is said that Queen Elizabeth I of
England bought a narwhal tusk for the same price it would have cost her to
build a new castle. An American named Robert Peary became one of the first people to make it to the North Pole in 1909. There are no hotels at the North Pole, but tourists can visit, and there is even a North Pole Marathon! (A marathon is a 26.2-mile running race.) But the temperatures on the North Pole are nothing to take lightly. It can take just minutes for frost- bite to set in. Santa really has to bundle up!
— Moira E. McLaughlin
EVER WONDERED what it’s like at the North Pole?
Climate change makes the ice in a polar bear’s habitat melt.
DID YOU KNOW?
The polar bear naturally lives in the Northern Hemisphere. However, polar bears do not live in one place year round. Instead, they travel north in the spring when it is warmer. In the fall, they move south when it gets colder again. A polar bear may also travel to find food. Some polar bears spend a lot of time in the water and can even swim as far as 100 miles from shore. )