I've been to Svalbard at 78 N. It's a Norwegian archipelago a thousand miles or so North of Northern Norway. That was in the summer and the temperature was in the 30s-50s F range. They have a city up there called Longyearbyen with around 1000 inhabitants. Recently I discovered that there is a corresponding city (really an American station) at the same Southern latitude in Antarctica called Mc Murdo. I found a website for an Antarctic newspaper :
http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/
They also have a smaller station at the actual South Pole, which is far colder, ranging from about -110 F to close to 0 F. Or -80 to -20 C. Throughout the year that is.
At the South Pole, the sun rises and sets twice a year, making for a 6 month night with several months of perpetual pitch dark. The few people who have to winter there to keep the station going are in for a real ordeal, with temperatures down to -100 F and strong winds outside, perpetual dark and being utterly confined within the large building and having to be totally self sufficient for months with no supplies or help arriving.
The conditions themselves have a particular effect on the human psyche, as depicted in this comic strip from the Antarctic Sun, which relates someone coming back to the South Pole station after having spent some time in the sunny, warm North :
There are photos elsewhere from the station during the winter months and some of those guys do look exactly like that. I'm not kidding. I think they have to be very tough to endure that.