The Northern Pole of Inaccessibility right at the centre of the Arctic Ocean is perhaps the loneliest and hardest place to reach throughout the world. It is sometimes called the Arctic Pole of Inaccessibility. As reported on the BBC, it is the point that is farthest from any land at approximately 480km from the North Pole.
The temperature in the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility may go as low as -50C and is dark from the months of October until March. To reach this pole requires walking across a truly thick layer of ice.
The Northern Pole of Inaccessibility has certainly proved elusive as it is yet to be successfully reached by any expedition. In 1927, Australian explorer Hubert Wilkins may have flown over this area. In the 1960s, British explorer Wally Herbert mistakenly thought he had come to the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility during his journey across the Arctic Ocean only to find out that he was not in the correct location.
Ted Scambos of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center explains, "The coastline in the Arctic believe it or not, as late as the 90s and early 2000s still had some big errors due to incorrect mapping from many years ago."
Polar explorer Jim McNeill was the first to suggest that the previously ascertained coordinates of the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility were inaccurate. Using modern satellite, a group of scientists followed McNeill's suggestion and discovered that what was originally supposed as the location of the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility was 214km off course from the actual coordinates.
Scott Polar Research Institute's Gareth Rees said that although the mistake would have been easy to figure out given that the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility is readily defined by the three different points at which it touches land from the centre of the ocean, the old maps had only ever determined two of these points and so added to the mystery that surrounded this place.
A British team is now preparing to journey 1000KM to be the first to set foot on the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility.
McNeill will be joining this expedition and this will be his third attempt into the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility. The team may take as much as 80 days to reach their destination. Certainly they will have to hurry before the ice that they need to cross cracks and melts away.
Climate change has lent significant urgency to the study of the Arctic. According to Scambos, the thinning ice as well as the terrain would have made the attempt daunting for most people.
McNeill and his team will be starting their journey in winter in the hope that they can cross the ice before it begins to crack and loosen. But they will need to hurry through the dark because their route to the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility is melting away.
