Quote Originally Posted by cfds View Post
In the 16th and 17th century there were many white spots on the maps (especially around Antarctica). On the other hand: 25000 meter high mountains are visible from very far away, but they may be mistaken for lower mountains that are closer.
On an Earth-sized planet, you'd be able to see a 25km high mountain (or it'd be above the horizon, at least) for about 550km, or about 5 degrees; that's only up to (at most) the Arctic circle, which is a pretty high latitude. If the longitude of the pole was a long way from the European analogue, it's quite feasible that it wouldn't even have been noticed by them until the early modern era -- think something like the European exploration of Alaska or eastern Siberia, which weren't until the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century.
Of course, unless the coast was completely uninhabitable, there might be some human settlement -- though some parts of our own Arctic weren't settled until close to the modern era.