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The complete list of Helen Thayer's accomplishments and the recognition she has garnered would require a separate website. That list includes: First woman to solo the magnetic North Pole 1988, Named "One of the Great Explorers of the 20th Century" by National Geographic, and American Leader of the first USA/Russian Arctic Women's Expedition 1990. Here are some of the highlights from her richly varied and fascinating life.
1988...The first woman to solo any of the world's Poles when she walked alone to the magnetic North Pole, pulling her own sled, unresupplied without the help of dog teams or snowmobiles. Helen was 50 years old. She wrote a best selling book, Polar Dream, about her journey. Helen was also first person to circumnavigate the magnetic North Pole area. 1990...American leader of the first Russian-USA women's Arctic expedition to Siberia and Soviet Polar Islands 1992.. Helen and Bill Thayer were the first married couple to walk to any of the world's Poles. They traveled on foot, pulling their own sleds without any resupply to the magnetic North Pole. Bill was the oldest person at 65 to walk to the Pole pulling his own sled without resupply. 1994...Helen and Bill spent one year with Charlie, their canine companion of magnetic North Pole fame, in the Canadian Yukon and in the Northwest Territories studying and photographing three families of wild wolves at their den site, hunting range and on the sea ice. The remarkable story is documented in Helen's book Three Among the Wolves. 1995...Walked 1,500 miles through Death Valley, Mojave and the American and Mexican Sonoran Deserts in a study of high and low altitude deserts. 1996... First woman to walk across the Sahara Desert following an ancient camel trade route of 4,000 miles. 1997...Helen walked alone for 450 miles in Antarctica, pulling her own 260 pound sled, unresupplied. During the expedition she celebrated her 60th birthday alone on the polar ice cap with a frozen cup cake and one candle. She had no radio or voice contact with the outside world. She was the only living being in the area she traveled. She said, "It was like living on the moon." 1998...With her husband Bill, Helen trekked with the largest caribou herd in the world of half a million animals, as they followed their centuries old tradition of migrating from their wintering grounds in southern Alaska to the North Slope calving grounds. The Thayer's walked 600 miles, documenting the entire migration for educational--scientific programs. They walked with the herd across the vast tundra plains, across the wind swept Brooks Range, the most northern mountain range in the world, to the frigid North Slope of Alaska. 1999... Walked 1,200 miles throughout New Zealand studying the Moari culture. 2000…First non-Indians to kayak 1,200 miles along two rivers in a remote area of the Amazon rain forest. They lived with indigenous Indians and explored an area seldom seen by outsiders. It was a study of a rain forest's original inhabitants. 2000…Trekked 400 miles from the northern Canadian Yukon Territories to the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska to document the annual migration of 240,000 caribou of the Porcupine herd from their wintering grounds to their summer calving grounds and to document the Gwich'n indigenous people's dependence on the herd for sustenance 2001…First to trek on foot across the entire length of the Mongolian Gobi Desert west to east Helen, 63 with Bill 74, (a 2 person team), trekked a distance of 1,600 miles. They suffered through 126 degree heat, sand storms, life threatening thirst and scorpions as they walked the longest route across the desert, west to east, on a journey of true discovery to share the nomadic lifestyle of desert nomads who have lived in the Gobi for hundreds of years and still follow the ancient lifestyle of their ancestors. Awards and Recognition
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