Not the actual North Pole, nor the pole cap.

It's headed for an area thought to have lots of shallow ground ice. The instrument package is designed to measure the temperature and melting point and volatile composition of the ice.

Meridiani is an interesting site, of course but the follow-up needed there is more detailed hard-rock chemistry and maybe ultra-microscopy and mass spectrometry of the rocks for any biologic signature.

Remember the planning timescale for Mars missions is at least 5 years, so this was being planned back in 2000-2001 before we had even visited Meridiani and realised how interesting a place it is.

And there are other interesting places besides Meridiani. I'd love to visit a crater with a central sulphate-rich mound or perhaps the sulphate deposits in Valles Marineris.

Every new place we visit has new surprises and goes some way to answer old questions...