The Northern Air Temple was the first of the four air temples, and celebrates the patronage of Xuanwu, the black lionturtle of the north.
The airbending Guru Laghima achieves weightlessness and lives his final forty years without touching the ground. His philosophical rival, Guru Shoken, advocates that people should follow their own path, unburdened by morals or ideas of enlightenment.
Whaletail island was chosen as both a symbolic location near the Southern Air temple, where Avatar Aang is from and where the war began, and as a neutral, uninhabited and unclaimed island, for the peace accords following the Hundred Year War. Fireord Zuko of the Fire Nation, Avatar Aang of the Southern Air temple, Chief Hakoda representing the Southern tribes and Chief Arnook of the North, as well as Earth King Kuei and the council of Generals met here to finalize the ending of the war, and to move forward with reparations.