Magnetic north sits in the Canadian Arctic

What actually happened

The magnetic pole is not a fixed spot; it is where Earth's molten-iron core happens to aim the field at the surface, and it drifts as the core churns. For most of the twentieth century it ambled along at around 15 km a year and stayed comfortably in the Canadian Arctic, which is what older classroom maps and compass-correction charts assumed.

Starting in the 1990s it sped up dramatically, to roughly 50-55 km a year, the fastest movement recorded since measurements began, charging across the top of the world toward Russia. The acceleration was so unexpected that the US and UK agencies that maintain the World Magnetic Model issued an emergency out-of-cycle update in early 2020, a year ahead of the normal five-year schedule, because the existing model was drifting out of tolerance for navigation.

The 2025 model update showed the pole slowing again, but only after it had crossed the Greenwich meridian into the Eastern Hemisphere, territory it had never occupied in the era of modern measurement. The takeaway for a former student is concrete: the compass needle is chasing a moving target, that target has left Canada, and the correction built into your phone's map had to be rewritten twice in the 2020s to keep up.