Scott here with another episode of the History and Plug podcast.

The North Pole is one of the most alien places on planet Earth, and also one of the least

well-known. It's a center of our planet's rotation, has had constant ice presence for almost

three million years, despite having no land at the north, and strange year of one sunset and one

sunrise makes

it eerie and an utterly disorienting place. For that reason, it's attracted envelope-bushy

explorers for centuries. One of them is early in Kagee, a Norwegian explorer who, along with his

friend Borges Auslin, became the first people to reach the pole without dogs, depots,

airdrops, or motorized aids, skiing for 58 days from a drop-off

point on the edge of Canada's northernmost island. In today's episode, Kakey is here to describe

his journey, suffering challenges like having to fight a polar bear, but we also discuss a history

of the North Pole itself. Starting 2.7 million years ago, when it became covered with ice,

jumping to ancient Greece when geographers

put forth theories of who lived there, and they envisioned a mythical land called Hyperborea,

a paradise where the sun never set, inhabited by people who lived in an internal spring,

then going to the heroic age of polar exploration, including Robert Perry, Roald Amudsen,

and then getting into the mechanical age, where

Richard Byrd, polar pilots, and others traverse this point.

Erling is the author of the book After the North Pole. I hope we enjoy this discussion of one of the

least understood places on Earth and our relationship with it across history.

And one more thing before we get started with this episode, a quick break for a word from our sponsors.

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