North Pole
How did SANTA CLAUS come to choose the North Pole as his home? He didn’t. This address was chosen for him by American cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902). In 1882 Nast depicted Santa perched on top of a crate bearing the label “Christmas box 1882, St. Nicholas, North Pole.” Nast’s vision apparently caught on. Several years later, another artist portrayed Santa returning to his North Pole home. Soon, it became standard lore that the jolly GIFT giver inhabited the polar north.
What inspired Nast to give Santa such a remote residence? The influential portrait of the Christmas gift giver, painted decades earlier by Clement C. Moore in “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” described him wearing fur robes. This made it likely that he came from a cold climate. Nast may also have read Horatio Alger’s 1875 poem entitled “St. Nicholas,” in which Alger declared that this “patron saint of Christmas night” lived beyond the “polar seas.” At the time when Nast was conjuring up his images of Santa, no explorer had yet reached the North Pole, although several expeditions had begun the perilous journey. This remote and mysterious place, which no human being had yet seen, must have seemed the perfect abode for that elusive and magical creature, Santa Claus (see also CHILDREN’S LETTERS).