Here's Where to Find Us on a Map

Our town is located on the Boothia Peninsula. If you are on the up and up on your Arctic-ness, you might know the town as Spence Bay. Then again, if you're on the up and up you would probably already know that. Many towns and villages around Nunavut have changed their names to reflect the culture within them in recent years.

If you are not a fan of my ranting about history and junk - you might as well stop reading here. :)

In regards to the name of our blog - I stumbled upon some cool history about the general region around Taloyoak and read that the magnetic north pole was first discovered in 1831 around the Adelaide Peninsula - which is slightly South-West of Boothia Peninsula. Additionally, I found out that magnetic north is not a constant, and it is always moving - hence good compasses have a calibration mechanism (I learned that one from my Godfather, Peter). Below I've attached two pictures. One is a neat looking map circa 1950 of the Circumpolar World, (Circumpolar is a new word for me too. As it literally suggests, it is comprises the countries located around the Arctic Circle and those with shores along the Arctic Ocean). And below that picture is a neat notice I found on a google search milling around looking for info on magnetic north. The notice is for the recovery of John Franklin's expedition to magnetic north which never returned - sometime in the mid 1840s. If you are interested in reading on the North and such, I just picked up S.Grant's Polar Imperative --- it's supposed to be the best overall history of the Arctic world in scholarship right now, try it on.