This is a postcard of the original Santa Claus House in North Pole, Alaska. Yes, there is a real city named North Pole, a few miles east of Fairbanks, Alaska. There you can visit Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus year round, except Christmas Eve when he is rather busy. Forget Christmas Day too when he's taking a well deserved rest.The original Santa Claus House, 511 Santa Claus Lane, seen in this card, was begun in 1952. This picture postcard shows some add-ons to the original log structure. Beginning in 1954, this building served as the North Pole post office for 20 years. Santa had to move his residence when the state highway was relocated in 1974. Santa, knowing he had a tradition to uphold, moved his house to the current location on St. Nicholas Lane, which is today visible from the Richardson Highway, the main route between the Canadian border and Fairbanks.
You can find the Santa Claus House web site here. Along with remaining accessible year-round, for almost sixty years Santa has offered kids an official letter from Santa on Santa's own stationary. And can you believe some people don't think he is real.
It looks large enough to warehouse a lot of gifts too!
ReplyDeleteI'm terribly sorry, Kris. You may have a place in Alaska called North Pole but the North Pole (at least for now) is still in Canada
ReplyDeletehttp://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/nmp/northpole_e.php.
Of course, since our respective countries cooperate in tracking Santa through Norad:
http://www.msgr.ca/msgr-2/norad_and_santa_claus%2000.htm
I guess we can agree to share him!
Evelyn in Montreal
Santa Claus House is awesome - we were there this summer. As a side note - he doesn't work on Sundays or Mondays either, we had to go back on Tuesday so my kids could see him :)
ReplyDeleteShaunna,
ReplyDeleteIt seems Santa needs his days off too. After all, he's getting up there in age.
Evelyn,
That's the magnetic north pole, yes, but we have a city named North Pole. The Norad site is great but the tracking seems to have left Santa out of Alaska. What's with that?
Christine,
The present day site is even larger. I'll try and post another postcard soon.
I used this same postcard on an article I posted about "Roadside Santas" on my postcardy.com website a couple of weeks ago. I didn't realize it had been moved.
ReplyDeleteArticle is here:
http://www.postcardy.com/article20.html
Whoa !!! I love this fabulous one !
ReplyDelete