Helen Thayer is a New Zealand-born explorer. At 50, she became the first woman to travel solo to the magnetic North Pole, pulling her own sled without resupply. She travelled on foot, with no outside help. She now lives in the United States. She continues to develop educational programs with her husband Bill, a retired helicopter pilot.
Thayer is the author of Polar Dream: The First Solo Expedition by a Woman and Her Dog to the Magnetic North Pole, Three Among the Wolves: A year of Friendship with Wolves in the Wild, and Trekking the Gobi: Desert of Dreams and Despair.
She has received the Northwest Explorer's Club's Vancouver Award, and the Robert Henning Award from the Alaskan Geographic Alliance for exploration and education.
Her accomplishments include:
- Traveled alone to the magnetic North Pole accompanied only by her polar bear dog, Charlie
- Walked across the Sahara Desert, following an ancient 4,000-mile trade route
- Walked 1,600 miles across the Mongolian Gobi Desert
- In two expeditions, she kayaked 2,200 miles in the Amazon
- Lived alongside a wolf den for over six months and traveled the Canadian polar sea to study wild wolves for one year
- An internationally-acclaimed motivational speaker
- An accomplished high-altitude mountain climber
- Represented three countries (New Zealand, Guatemala, United States) in international track and field
- United States National luge champion
Read more about Helen Thayer: Awards
Famous quotes containing the words helen and/or thayer:
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—Abraham Polonsky, U.S. screenwriter, Frank Butler, and Helen Deutsch. Mitchell Leisen. Lydia (Marlene Dietrich)
“It looked extremely rocky for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood two to four, with but one inning left to play.”
—Ernest Lawrence Thayer (1863–1940)