Mr. Athena and I had a conversation the other night over a bottle of wine. If we drew a line straight north from our house, what’s between us and the north pole?
I pulled up Google Earth today and used the Path tool to do just that. Between us and the north pole - or, at least, the bit of Google Earth where all the slices come together at the top of the globe - is nothing. Not one town or city. Lots and lots and lots of Canadian wilderness though.
Kind of unsettling now that I look out my north-facing living room windows and realize I’m at the edge of the human world.
Of course, where I am now is the “heart of it all”. However, from my home in Australia, after you go due south for about a kilometer, there’s nothing but ocean and ice (for about 6,700 km) until you reach the South Pole. And if you go due east, there’s nothing but ocean for about 12,000 km until you hit the coast of Chile.
When I was in Iceland last year I was intrigued by a sign on the south coast, not far from Rekjavik. It claimed that a straight line drawn due south from that point would not hit any land until Antarctica. It was hard to believe (given how far north Iceland is) but a quick look at an atlas showed that it was true.