North Pole

Only in Alaska would there be a town named North Pole, 1,700 miles south of the real North Pole! This North Pole is a 3,000-person town that thrives on all things Christmas. The town has its Christmas decorations up all year round, the street lamps are decorated in a candy motif and local businesses are encouraged to have a festive theme. Even the famous Golden Arches sit atop a candy cane pole!

We drove along Santa Claus Lane, Snowman Lane and St Nicholas Drive, enjoying the Christmas-themed bus stops and street signs.

We also visited the famous Santa Claus House at 101 St Nicholas Drive. At Christmas time, this place receives hundreds of thousands of letters addressed to the resident Santa. We saw Santa's sled, the largest fibre glass Santa in the world and a couple of Santa's reindeer looking a bit out of shape!

It's considered very lucky to receive mail from North Pole franked with Santa's 99705 postmark, so we mailed ourselves a North Pole postcard. Now we can be naughty for the rest of the year and we should still get Christmas presents...!