Blue Nose Submarine Arctic Circle Patch

Look at the polar bear's nose: it is stitched blue, because on this patch even the bear has crossed the line. Sailors who take a ship or a boat across the Arctic Circle, above 66 degrees 34 minutes north, enter the realm of Boreas Rex, King of the North. Those who pass his court are admitted to the Order of the Blue Nose and receive a certificate to prove it. The Navy also calls the rite the Northern Domain of the Polar Bear, which explains who is walking across this ice. It is the cold-water cousin of the Shellback ceremony at the equator, and far fewer sailors ever get the chance.

Submarines made the high north their own during the Cold War. USS Nautilus passed beneath the North Pole in August 1958, and USS Skate (SSN-578) reached the Pole a week later. On March 17, 1959, Skate, under Commander James Calvert, broke through the ice and became the first submarine to surface at the North Pole, where her crew committed the ashes of polar explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins. Under-ice operations kept the boats going north for decades, and surface ships have returned to those latitudes in recent years. Sailors and Marines aboard USS Arlington held an Arctic Circle ceremony in 2022, and crews of USS Ross, USS Donald Cook and USS Thomas Hudner have joined the order as well.

The patch is 5 inches round with a white merrowed edge. ARCTIC CIRCLE arches across the top in white letters against a dark blue night sky, where green and pink northern lights roll over the ice ridges. A gray submarine noses up through the pack ice at the center, sail clear and a blue bow wave curling off her hull. In the foreground a white polar bear pads across the floe, that blue nose leading the way. BLUE NOSE runs along the bottom in pink letters frosted blue at the top and shadowed in black, as if the cold is already working on them. It has an iron-on backing and can also be sewn on.

A Blue Nose certificate usually ends up framed, because few cruises ever take a crew that far north. Submariners who came up through the ice and sailors who stood bridge watches under the aurora carry that crossing for the rest of their lives. The Blue Nose takes its place beside the Shellback in the Navy's old line-crossing traditions.

Frame it beside your Blue Nose certificate, or sew it onto the jacket or cruise vest you wear to a boat reunion. It makes a good gift for a submariner or a shipmate who crossed 66 degrees north with you. Boreas Rex keeps a short list.