Posted by Elizabeth on September 08, 2006 at 05:00:52 from 71.236.185.241 user Elizabeth.
In Reply to: Why Arctic and not Antarctic ? posted by John Giddy on September 08, 2006 at 04:34:02:
The "North Pole" house with many windows existed in Ransome's time--at the north end of Lake Windermere, I believe--so he may have chosen North Pole as the exploration simply because it would have seemed odd to him to call a building at the north end of the lake the "South Pole". In the story--set on and around AR's make-believe lake--the children would not have found the conveniently-stocked little house if they had headed south!
Although, there may be another reason. I recall that during my childhood, the 50's & 60's, I heard and read much more about the Artic than the Antarctic. In fact, I remember learning, to my surprise, that the South Pole was as frozen and icy as the North. I guess that in our hemisphere, at any rate, children tend to equate 'north' with cold and 'south' with hot. Perhaps his use of the North Pole was a reflection of what children in that time would have known about.