Adventure Hannah

No woman has ever made a solo, self-propelled journey to the North Pole. This spring, Hannah McKeand intended to become the first. She had planned to make the journey in the old-school adventure style, carrying all of her food and equipment with her from the start; while taking the most difficult route on foot from Ward Hunt Island. "This journey is one of the last great expeditionary firsts left in the world according" according to adventurehannah.com

Most unfortunately the plan was interrupted en route by a fall into a crevasse on Thursday--necessitating a satellite phone call to summon help in the form of a Canadian Forces rescue helicopter from Canadian Forces Station Alert, a Cold War-era radio eavesdropping and weather station on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island (now there is a life of adventure). Let's hope they don't slap her with an adventure-deterring bill for their services (or that she has adventure insurance), and that she plans to get right back to it as soon as she has mended.

It turns out Hannah has been living an awesome life of adventure . In 2001 she joined a Hungarian-led expedition searching for prehistoric rock art in the mountains bordering Egypt, Libya and the Sudan ('The English Patient' theme adventure?). In 2004 she explored the Wakan Corridor in Afghanistan in search of the source of the River Oxus. She has skied over 1,000 kilometres from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole, and owns a Blizzard Expeditions -- an antarctic/sub-antarctic sailing expedition company--with her partner David Pryce.