Robert Edwin Peary Sr. was an American explorer and officer in the United States Navy who made several expeditions to the Arctic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for, in April 1909, leading an expedition that claimed to be the first to have reached the geographic North Pole.
Albert Paddock Crary, was a pioneer polar geophysicist and glaciologist. He was the first person to have set foot on both the North and South Poles, having made it to the North Pole on May 3, 1952 and then to the South Pole on February 12, 1961, as the leader of a team of eight. The South Pole expedition set out from McMurdo Station on December 10, 1960, using three Snowcats with trailers. Crary was the seventh expedition leader to arrive at the South Pole by surface transportation. He was widely admired for his intellect, wit, skills and as a great administrator for polar research expeditions.
Ann Bancroft is an American author, teacher, adventurer, and public speaker. She was the first woman to finish a number of expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1995.
Ralph Summers Plaisted was an American explorer who, with his three companions, Walt Pederson, Gerry Pitzl and Jean-Luc Bombardier, are regarded by most polar authorities to be the first to succeed in a surface traverse across the ice to the North Pole on April 19, 1968, making the first confirmed surface conquest of the Pole.
Sir George Hubert Wilkins MC & Bar, commonly referred to as Captain Wilkins, was an Australian polar explorer, ornithologist, pilot, soldier, geographer and photographer. He was awarded the Military Cross after he assumed command of a group of American soldiers who had lost their officers during the Battle of the Hindenburg Line, and became the only official Australian photographer from any war to receive a combat medal. He narrowly failed in an attempt to be the first to cross under the North Pole in a submarine, but was able to prove that submarines were capable of operating beneath the polar ice cap, thereby paving the way for future successful missions. The US Navy later took his ashes to the North Pole aboard the submarine USS Skate on 17 March 1959.
Sir Walter William Herbert was a British polar explorer, writer and artist. In 1969 he became the first man fully recognized for walking to the North Pole, on the 60th anniversary of Robert Peary's disputed expedition. He was described by Sir Ranulph Fiennes as "the greatest polar explorer of our time".
Paul Landry M.B. is a French-Canadian polar explorer, author, and adventurer who is the only paid man to ever reach three Geographical poles in a single year.
Robert Charles Swan, OBE, FRGS is the first person to walk to both poles.
Adventure learning is a hybrid distance education approach pioneered at St. Thomas University in the 1990s and defined in 2006 by Aaron Doering of the University of Minnesota.
Eric Philips OAM is an Australian polar explorer, adventurer and polar guide.
Johan Ernst Nilson (born 4 August 1969 is a Swedish explorer, known as an "environmental explorer" because of his interest in environment and climate-related issues.
Jon Bowermaster is an oceans expert, journalist, author, filmmaker, adventurer and six-time grantee of the National Geographic Expeditions Council. One of the Society’s ‘Ocean Heroes,’ his first assignment for National Geographic Magazine was documenting a 3,741 mile crossing of Antarctica by dogsled.
Aaron Doering is an American explorer, author, public speaker, and adventure learning pioneer. He was a full professor at the University of Minnesota until 2019, and the director and co-founder of the Learning Technologies Media Lab. Doering is a laureate of the humanitarian Tech Awards, and was a fellow for the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment. He is also a fellow for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
Eric Larsen is an American Polar adventurer known for his expeditions to the North Pole, South Pole, and Mount Everest.
Alain Hubert is a Belgian explorer. He is a certified mountain and polar guide, a civil engineer, and the founder President of the International Polar Foundation. With the Foundation and its private partners, he built and financed the construction of the scientific research station ‘Princess Elisabeth’. This station is the first ‘Zero Emissions’ station in Antarctica, designed under the spirit of the Madrid protocol system establishing in 1992 the strictest environmental rules to date for a continent through the Antarctic Treaty System.
John Huston is an American polar explorer, motivational speaker, wilderness guide, and safety and logistics consultant. In 2009, Huston completed the first successful unsupported American expedition to the North Pole. He has also completed expeditions to the South Pole, Greenland, and Ellesmere Island. Huston is the co-author of Forward: The First American Unsupported Expedition to the North Pole.
1990 International Trans-Antarctica Expedition was a 6,021-kilometre (3,741-mile), 220-day expedition and the first-ever non-mechanized crossing of Antarctica. The six-member, international team was co-led by U.S. team member, Will Steger and French team member, Dr. Jean-Louis Étienne. The other team members were Victor Boyarsky, Geoff Somers, Qin Dahe (China) and Keizo Funatsu (Japan). The expedition was operated in partnership with the Soviet Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute through a joint venture. Primary expedition sponsors were W. L. Gore and Associates and Union d'Assurances de Paris (UAP).
Louise Tolle Huffman is an American teacher with over 30 years of teaching experience with many years focused on polar science and climate studies, and has written educational outreach books and articles on Antarctica. She is the Director of Education and Outreach for the US Ice Drilling Program Office (IDPO), responsible for outreach efforts highlighting IDPO scientists and their research results.
The book North to the Pole, written by Will Steger and Paul Schurke, was published in 1986. It is a first-person account of an expedition to the North Pole and illustrates how seven men and one woman set out by dog-sled to accomplish the goal of completing an expedition to the North Pole without resupply and only with the help of traditional navigation techniques. The expedition is successfully completed within 56 days, and the crew is much praised and celebrated for it, especially by the media.
