Though expeditions to the North Pole are exceedingly rare, when they do occur, adventurers commonly get there via a combination of dog sledding and skiing. One person made it with a motorcycle in 1987, but no one has made it by kayak. In 2008, Lewis Pugh attempted the water-borne trek via cracked channels in the ice, but unfortunately, he was forced to stop about 620 miles from the top of the world.

Earth’s axis is pointed almost directly at the star Polaris, part of the Ursa Minor constellation. It appears to remain fixed in the sky, so travelers can use it as a navigational guide to point directly to the North Pole. But because of the way the Earth spins and wobbles through space, the star Thuban was the North Star around the year 2600 BCE, and in roughly 12,000 more years, the North Star will be Vega.

Though there aren't many animals at the North Pole, life still finds a way to exist even in the harshest of environments. Most of the living things up there are small shrimps, sea anemones, and Arctic birds, but there are some mammals. Ringed seals are relatively common in the area, and Arctic foxes have been spotted, too. Penguins, however, are found only in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Arctic Circle marks the southern limit of the area within which the sun does not rise or set for one or more days out of the year. The region includes only the northernmost parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, Alaska, and Scandinavia, where about 2 million people live in total. On the opposite side of the globe, at 66°30' S latitude, you'll find the Antarctic Circle.

Just before World War II, the Soviet Union established the first-ever research station in the vicinity of the North Pole. The station, named North Pole-1, was actually built on a moving ice floe. Researchers worked for 274 days while their base was busy drifting more than 1,600 miles south toward the Greenland Sea. Eventually, they were evacuated with the help of an icebreaker.

In 1926, Roald Amundsen completed the first undisputed trip to the North Pole, though he never set foot there. Amundsen flew over the remote location in the Norge airship, which flew from the Norwegian Arctic to Alaska. It would be 32 more years before a submarine surfaced at the North Pole and 10 years after that until a snowmobile made the trip. Cars still haven't made it.

Early attempts at reaching the North Pole are hard to verify, but the general consensus is that Robert Peary's expedition was the first to make it there in 1909. Accompanying him were 50 other men and 246 sled dogs, which crossed hundreds of miles of ice to stand on top of the world. However, some navigational questions remain as to whether Peary actually made it or just came close.

The North Pole is entirely covered in ice and water, with no land underneath. But about 430 miles to the south, land begins to appear. Newly discovered in 2021, the small island of Qeqertaq Avannarleq, off the coast of Greenland, has taken the title of the closest land to the North Pole. Qeqertaq Avannarleq means "the northernmost island" in Greenlandic.

The North Pole is found in the middle of Earth's Arctic Circle, on a patch of ice that is frozen solid for most of the year. That ice is made from the Arctic Ocean's waters, which surround the North Pole and everything above roughly 60°N latitude. The Arctic is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceans.

Denmark, Russia, the United States, Canada, and Norway have all laid claim to parts of the Arctic Circle around the North Pole, but the North Pole itself is not owned by any particular country. Many countries want a slice of it, though — beneath its waters is a treasure trove of oil and natural gas, which the U.S. Geological Survey estimates to be 22% of the world's undiscovered supply.