Helen Thayer A New Zealand Explorer, Photographer Author.

When was she born? Helen Thayer was born in 1937 Whangarei, New Zealand. She grew up on a large hilly NZ farm where sheep and cows were raised. Her parents were mountain climbers and liked to go climbing a lot.

How did she develop a passion for exploring? When she was 9, she climbed up Mount Egmont. After that it became her hobby to climb. As she got older she travelled to different countries so that she could climb to the top of more peeks. She went to Alaska, Lenin, China, South America, Mexico and the Western United States.

How many adventures did she go on? Helen Thayer has done so many things in her life time and not all of them were adventures. Her passion has always been climbing and most of her achievements have something to do with trekking and going solo. Surprisingly, 50 is the age that she started her major challenges and literally, she went uphill from there. Helen has done 12 adventures since she was 50.

How did she inspire us all? Helen is that amazing sort of woman who never gives up. Her achievements are amazing and the photos she has taken are great. I myself have not read her books but have seen comments and 7 out of 10 think they are extremely good books. What have we learnt from her? We have learnt that if you want to reach a goal you have to have a plan and to achieve it you have to stick by it and never give up.

What did she achieve? Time – line 1988 – Helen Thayer was the first woman to ever go solo to the worlds Poles. She walked alone to the magnetic North Pole, pulled her own sled and she went without the help of anybody and only the company of her pet Eskimo dog Charlie.

What did she achieve? 1990 – American leader of the first Russian- USA women’s Arctic expedition to Siberia and Soviet Polar Islands.

What did she achieve? 1992 – Helen and Bill (her husband) were the first married couple to walk to the Magnetic North Pole. They pulled their own sleds and walked without resupply.

What did she achieve? 1994 – Helen and bill spent over a year with Charlie, Helen’s Eskimo dog in the Canadian Yukon and in the Northwest territories studying three wild wolf families at their den site. There is more about this in 1 of Helens books, three among wolfs.

What did she achieve? 1995 – She walked 1,500 miles through the Death Valley, Mojave and the American and Mexican Sonoran Deserts because she was studying the high and low altitude deserts.

What did she achieve? 1996 – First woman to walk across the Sahara Desert following an ancient camel trade route of 4,000 miles from Morocco to the River Nile.

What did she achieve? 1997 – Helen walked alone for 625 miles in Antarctica, pulling her own sled, without resupply. During the expedition she had her 60 th birthday alone on the polar ice cap with a frozen cup cake that only had one candle.

What did she achieve? 1998 – With her husband Bill, Helen trekked with the largest North American deer herd in the world of half a million animals and followed the animals old tradition of migrating from their wintering grounds in southern Alaska to the North Slope calving grounds. Helen and her family walked 600 miles, documenting the entire migration for educational--scientific programs.

What did she achieve? 1999 – Helen walked 1,200 miles throughout New Zealand studying the Maori culture.

What did she achieve? 2000 – Helen was the first non-Indian to kayak 1,200 miles along two rivers in a remote area of the Amazon rain forest. She lived with indigenous Indians and explored an area very little seen by outsiders. It was a study of a rain forest's original inhabitants.

What did she achieve? 2000 – She also trekked 400 miles from the northern Canadian Yukon Territories to the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska to see the annual migration of 240,000 caribou of the Porcupine herd from their wintering grounds to their summer calving grounds and to record the Gwich'n indigenous people's dependence on the herd for sustenance.

What did she achieve? 2001 – Helen and bill were the first to go foot across the entire length of the Mongolian Gobi Desert west to east at the age of 63 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 to discover the lifestyle of desert nomads who have lived in the Gobi for hundreds of years and still follow the ancient lifestyle of their ancestors.

What did she write about? Helen has written 3 books. These books are of three different things she has done. Her fist book is called Polar Dream her second, Three among wolves and most recently, Walking The Gobi.

What kinds of things did she photograph?

What was her major achievement? Helen’s biggest achievement was her first expedition, when she went to the north pole and 3 polar bears blocked her way. She burst into tears and her eyelids froze shut but she still kept on going. She also went the without resupply.

Bibliography These are the websites that helped me with this project: