I have been using the tracking tool on Continental Airlines to track the flight status of today's flight to Hong Kong from Newark.  The flight path takes the plane almost due north until it is higher on the globe than Greenland.  Only then does the flight path turn East.  It passes North of Greenland and a large Island I never heard of, called Spitzbergen, and another one called Franz Josef Land.  Europe is well to the south of the flight path.  When the plane reaches the Arctic Ocean, up over Siberia, it turns south and crosses Russia and Mongolia and a lot of China before landing in Hong Kong.  At least that is what it looks like on a flat map.  I haven't flown that route to China.