The bone-numbing trek to the North Pole is riddled with enough perils to make a seasoned explorer quake with fear: Frostbite threatens, polar bears loom and the ice is constantly shifting beneath frozen feet.
But Barbara Hillary took it all in stride, completing the trek to the world's northernmost point last month at the age of 75. She is one of the oldest people to reach the North Pole, and is believed to be the first black woman on record to accomplish the feat.
Hillary grew up in Harlem and never married, devoting herself instead to a nursing career and community activism. At 67 and during retirement, she battled lung cancer. Five years later, she went dog sledding in Quebec and photographed polar bears in Manitoba.
PHOTO: AP
Then she heard that a black woman had never made it to the North Pole.
"I said: `What's wrong with this picture?'" she said. "So I sort of rolled into this, shall we say."
In 1909, Matthew Henson made history as the first black man to reach the Pole, though his accomplishment was not officially recognized for several decades; it was overshadowed by the presence of his white colleague, Robert Peary.
Ann Bancroft, a physical education teacher from Minnesota, was the North Pole's first female visitor in 1986 as a member of the Steger Polar Expedition, which arrived unassisted in a re-creation of the 1909 trip. Various scientific organizations said no record exists of a black woman matching Bancroft's feat, although such record-keeping is not perfect.
"It's not like there's a guest book when you get up there and you sign it," said Robert Russell, founder of Eagles Cry Adventures, Inc, the travel company that leads thrill-seekers like Hillary to the farthest corners of the globe. Russell conducted six months' worth of research, interviewing fellow polar expedition contractors and digging through history books, but failed to find a black woman who completed the trek.
Russell's paying customers can travel to that coveted place in various ways, from 18-day cross-country ski trips to simply being dropped off at the Pole via helicopter.
The trip costs about US$21,000 per person.
Hillary insisted on skiing. Only trouble was, she'd never been on the slopes before.
"It wasn't a popular sport in Harlem," she quipped.
So she enrolled in cross-country skiing lessons and hired a personal trainer, who finally determined she was physically fit for the voyage.
"She's a headstrong woman. You don't tell her `no' about too many things," Russell said.
Her lack of funds didn't stop her, either. Hillary scraped together thousands of dollars and solicited private donors. On April 18, she arrived in Longyearben, Norway, where it is common for people to carry guns due to the presence of hungry polar bears.
"Before I arrived, the word was out that soul food was coming," she joked.
The travelers were then flown to Borneo ice camp -- which is re-built each year due to melting ice -- and pitched their tents. On April 23 Hillary set off on skis with two trained guides. Russell, fearing for her health, had convinced her to take the daylong ski route to the Pole in lieu of the longer trips.
As the sunlight glinted off the ice, distorting her gaze, Hillary struggled beneath a load of gear and pressed on.
In her euphoria at reaching the Pole, she forgot the cold and removed her gloves, causing her fingers to be frostbitten.
Standing at the top of the world, she could have cared less. The enormous expanse of ice and sky left Hillary, for once in her long life, speechless.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in