When you are north of the magnetic North Pole in November, December, January (Panarctic Oils) and you know that there is nobody for 2000 miles to come and save you if you screw it up - it gets VERY, VERY lonely.
Absolutely correct. Not to talk about departing Rae Point for points even further north, to land beside a drill rig on the frozen Arctic Ocean at 82N for Dome Pete - in the days before INS and GPS were commercially available!
That good old Sperry Slaved Gyro Compass (a J-2 IIRC) was the reliable 'lifeline' in the areas of compass unreliability, with astro backup (LoL).
And, we won't even talk about communications (or lack thereof)!