Winter animals

 
Warning – before you begin reading.  In this book you will find animals who live around the South pole and the North pole of our Earth.  They do like sun, but they only ever get a luke warm one.The kind that makes the hairs on your skin stand on end.
So: if you can’t stand minus 20 degrees, pack your bags and go somewhere warmer.  Go buy an ice cream.  But forget about real cold.
The North pole. The South pole.  Nothing in between.  It’s not written anywhere in black and white.  It was never declared by a king.  But everybody knows – the North and South pole are the father and mother of the Earth.  They hold the world together.  They stand at the top and the bottom.  Without them, we would be free falling through space.
It’s always cold there.  Not just cold, but ice cold.  Summer and winter, the freezer is always on.  That’s why almost no one goes there, because no one likes having icicles on their nose and frozen hair.
On top of the world, and at the other end, is it empty and white.  There are just a few animals, and a handful of people who like cold and bare landscapes.
The land round the North pole has a name, an official name: Arctis.  It’s from the Greek word arktos, which means “bear”.  It’s not called that because of the polar bears wandering around, the Greeks didn’t know anything about them, but because you can always see 2 constellations in the northern sky, called the Great Bear and the Little Bear.  Travellers always keep an eye on them, so that they don’t get lost.  That’s how the North pole gets its official name.
You can’t see those constellations in the southern sky, so that’s how the South pole gets its name – Antarctica, opposite the bear.
It’s cold, it’s white, and on both poles there are just 2 seasons, summer and winter.  But otherwise they are as different as night and day.
The North pole is made of water, frozen seawater, surrounded by land.  The South pole is land, surrounded by water.  Around the North pole you find Russia, Canada, Norway, Greenland and Alaska.  Around the South pole you find the Southern Ocean.
The North pole shrinks in the summer, pieces of pack ice melt, so you can never say exactly how big it is.  And because the North pole floats, and moves slightly, you can’t build on it.  But you can on the South pole.  Researchers from all over the world live there.  They don’t have to be scared their houses might suddenly disappear into the sea.  Their houses stand on a layer of ice over a kilometre thick, and underneath is stone.
The South pole is a bit bigger than Europe.  It is much colder than at the North pole.  That’s because of the stone under the ground.  The record for the coldest point on Earth stands at -89.2 deg C, back in 1983.  Because there’s water under the North pole, the winters don’t get quite so cold.
The insane cold is the reason why no one lives at the South pole, apart from the scientists who visit for a while.  At the North pole, you find Eskimo, the Inuit.  They would never survive at the South pole, even though they don’t get too fussed about -40degC.
And now, to the animals, which is what this book is about.  There are penguins at the South pole.  Not at the north pole.  But you do get mammals there, like polar bears, the polar fox, which you don’t get at the South pole.
Round both poles you find fish, seals, birds, whales.  But not the same kinds.  There is just one that lives at both poles.  Half the year at the north pole, half the year at the south pole.  Every year, it flies back and forth.  It’s as if he is visiting the father and the mother of the world.
Why?  Because parents always have to know what each other are doing.  And if you live far apart, like the North and South poles, then you need someone who can pass messages on.  That’s why.
 
That’s how it is.  The northpole and the south pole hold the world together.  But a bird* makes sure that the world keeps turning, night and day.
[Bibi Dumon Tak]
*Which bird is it?  You’ll have to wait and see.