That sounds more like a case of apparent polar wander, which has more to do with tectonic plates moving about rather than the the magnetic poles themselves - if you had a compass in your hand faced North, over time the land beneath your feet would move and turn you to the left say, such that even though you knew you hadn't moved, and as far as you knew you were facing the same direction, magnetic north appears to have moved relative to you.
Edit: Of course the poles in the first place aren't exactly simply things, we could have a north pole pop up anywhere, but by pop up we really mean 'over a few hundred years'.
I'm going to guess/hope the various pole shift pages are up to date, if not there is a thread over in Misc about it, right about here.
elsgeorge, 08 Jan 2011 00:00