SOME OF THE SNOWIEST, COLDEST PLACES ON EARTH

It’s fun and interesting to think about extreme places, especially destinations around the world with extreme weather! This winter, let’s learn about some of the globe’s coldest, snowiest places as we keep warm indoors. Spartan and the Green Egg has exciting explorer pins devoted to some of the world’s most fascinating and remote places; let’s travel vicariously with SGE to some of these snowy spots.

Bouvet Island: “A dependency of Norway, this uninhabitable sub-Antarctic island is in the South Atlantic Ocean around 1,100 miles north of Antarctica. The island is only 19 square miles and has an inactive volcano in the center. A glacier covers 93% of the land. While it has limited vegetation, the island is home to several species of breeding penguins and seals.” This is the most remote place on earth! Can you imagine such an empty, freezing-cold place?!
The South Pole is “one of just two points on the Earth where the axis of rotation interacts with the surface of the planet. It is the southern-most point of the entire planet, and is directly opposite of the North Pole. The South Pole is located on a plateau of ice in Antarctica that is over nine thousand feet thick.” Located in Antarctica, the South Pole experiences “up to 24 hours of sunlight in the summer and 24 hours of darkness in the winter.” No one lives here indefinitely—only about fifty people work at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station during the winter.
Antarctica’s Mt. Erebus “is located on Ross Island, which is a part of Antarctica. Mount Erebus has the honor of being the second highest volcano in Antarctica. The volcano has been active since 1972. It is home to many unique sites, such as a lake made out of lava. The volcano itself is very tall, standing over twelve thousand feet high.” Mount Erebus is thought to be the southernmost active volcano in the world and is constantly emitting gas and steam.
“The Southern Ocean goes by many names. It is more commonly called the Antarctic Ocean. Other names for it include the Austral Ocean and South Polar Ocean. It is home to the Emperor Penguin species, which is the largest species of penguin on Earth. The Southern Ocean also surrounds the continent of Antarctica, which contains 90 percent of the ice on the planet. At its deepest point, located in the South Sandwich Trench, the Southern Ocean reaches a depth of 23,737 feet.” Talk about an extreme place! The Southern Ocean is also known for its albatrosses, fur seals and blue whales.

“The North Pole earned its name by being the northernmost point on the planet where the axis meets the surface. Because of this, anyone at the North Pole will always face south in all directions. The North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. However, the location is always moving because of the shifting ice in the water. The North Pole wasn’t discovered until 1945.” Did you know that, because the ice is always shifting and moving at the North Pole, there is no possible way for a community to be built.

Alert, Nunavut: “Alert is part of the region of Nanavut, which is located within the northern section of Canada. Because of close proximity to the North Pole, the weather is always very cold. The freezing temperatures actually make it so almost nobody can live in the area. Scientists and the military have been conducting research in the area since as far back as the 1800’s.” Some people do, however, work and live at the military base on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut.

To learn more about the destinations discussed in the blog (along with other exciting places for travel and exploration), check out the links below and visit the website. And don’t forget to collect your explorer pins!

For more information on the sites mentioned in the blog, check out the links below: