The early nineteenth century was an exciting period in the history of magnetism. Interest in finding a sailing route through the Arctic islands, the so-called Northwest Passage, led to the British Royal Navy sending numerous expeditions to the Canadian Arctic. Because of its importance to navigation, the Royal Navy was also interested in magnetism and thus included magnetic observers on many of its expeditions, the most notable being Edward Sabine and James Clark Ross.

By 1829 sufficient magnetic observations had been made in the Canadian Arctic to restrict the location of the North Magnetic Pole to a hitherto unexplored section of the central Arctic. At this point the British Admiralty suddenly lost interest in Arctic exploration. However, John Ross (the uncle of James) was able to obtain sponsorship from the wealthy distiller Felix Booth for another attempt at the Northwest Passage – one that would go through the uncharted territory in which the North Magnetic Pole was thought to reside. Ross's expedition was remarkable in many ways. His ship, the Victory, was steam powered. This first attempt to use steam power in the Arctic caused the elder Ross to write "there seems indeed no end to the vexation produced by this accursed machinery..." The expedition was forced to spend four winters in the Arctic due to the imprisonment of the Victory in the ice. Eventually, the crew abandoned the Victory and reached the north coast of Baffin Island in lifeboats where they were rescued. In four years only three men were lost, a remarkable feat of survival for the time.

James Ross was well aware that the ship's route down the east coast of Boothia Peninsula brought it very close to the Magnetic Pole, and observations made while the ship was entombed in the ice confirmed that the Pole lay no more than a couple of hundred kilometres to the west. In May, 1831, he led a small party overland, and on the last day of the month reached a spot on the west coast of Boothia Peninsula (70° 05.3' N, 96° 46' W) where he believed the North Magnetic Pole should be. After carrying out a lengthy series of observations in an abandoned igloo, Ross computed a magnetic inclination of 89° 59'. Given the accuracy of his instruments, and the variable nature of the magnetic field, he could legitimately claim to be at the Pole. In his uncle's book on the expedition James Ross wrote "it almost seemed as if we had accomplished everything that we had come so far to see and to do; as if our voyage and all its labours were at an end and that nothing now remained for us but to return home and be happy for the rest of our days."

The next approach to the North Magnetic Pole did not come for more than 70 years. The Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen is well known for being the first person to sail through the Northwest Passage, in 1903-1906, and the first person to reach the South Pole in 1911. What is less well known is that Amundsen made the second determination of the location of the North Magnetic Pole during his voyage through the Northwest Passage. In fact, the primary purpose of the expedition was to set up a magnetic observatory near the North Magnetic Pole to study how the magnetic field changed with time, and how this caused the Pole's position to change with time. Amundsen might have been able to navigate the entire Northwest Passage in 1903; ice conditions were particularly favourable that year. He wrote in his account of the voyage, "The North West Passage was therefore open to us. But our first and foremost task was to obtain exact data as to the Magnetic North Pole, and so the Passage, being of less importance, had to be left in abeyance."

In September, 1903, Amundsen stopped for the winter at Gjoa Haven on King William Island. There he and his crew set up a magnetic observatory, complete with photographic recorders, to register rapid variations in the Earth's magnetic field; the observatory operated continually for 19 months. In April, 1904, Amundsen and a companion set out by sleigh to take magnetic observations in the vicinity of the North Magnetic Pole. Unlike Ross, Amundsen did not observe at the actually site of the Pole; given the daily motion of the Pole Ross had been rather fortunate to do so. Amundsen planned to observe at several sites around the estimated position of the Pole so that its exact position to be determined through interpolation. Unfortunately, the survey was not entirely successful, and Amundsen came back with only four observations. What is more, it was soon apparent that some of these observations were anomalous. Years would pass before scientists were satisfied that they had derived the best possible position from the data. This position was 70° 31' N, 96° 34' W, not far from Ross's position.

Almost half a century would elapse before another North Magnetic Pole survey took place. Observations made by Canadian government scientists at more southerly locations indicated that the Pole had moved a considerable distance in that time. This was confirmed by observations made in 1945 by the Aries, a Royal Air Force Lancaster fitted with seven compasses of various types and sophisticated (for the era) navigational equipment. Although the Aries observations confirmed that the Pole had moved north, they were not accurate enough to pinpoint its exact location. In 1947, Paul Serson and Jack Clark, of the Dominion Observatory, made a series of magnetic observations in the Arctic islands which established the position of the North Magnetic Pole as 73.9° N, 100.9 °W, 400 km northwest of Amundsen's position. However, the expedition was significant for two other reasons. First, transportation was by air. This reduced the time required to find the Pole from years to days. Second, observations were made with a new electronic magnetometer developed by Serson. This was the ancestor of the declination-inclination magnetometer that we use today.

Since 1947, North Magnetic Pole surveys have formed a regular part of the magnetic survey program carried out by NRCan (and its institutional ancestors). The table documents the surveys that have been carried out since that time.