Spitsbergen
Known to the popular imagination as the magical polar kingdom of Philip Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy, the real-life archipelago of Svalbard, or "the cold coast," lies well north of the Arctic Circle. The existence the Svalbard islands was first noted in 1194, but they remained unknown to the modern world until rediscovered by Dutch explorers in 1596.

Located about 580 miles (930 km) north of Norway, the islands have served as base for polar explorations since the eighteenth century. Vegetation is sparse, consisting of mostly lichen and moss, though small polar willows and dwarf birch occasionally dot the landscape. Wildlife includes polar bears, reindeer, seals, musk-ox (introduced from Greenland in 1929), and Arctic foxes.

The sea around Spitsbergen, the largest of Svalbard's nine islands, is shallow, and all but its westernmost shores are bound by pack ice throughout the winter and early spring. The island is home to Svalbard's highest point, Newton Peak, which rises 5,633 feet (1,717 m) above sea level. Elsewhere, vast coastal plains, formed by the sea long ago, stretch white for miles beneath the Arctic sky.