On Monday, October 23, Matty McNair spoke at Boyd Hall to a group of students about her many polar expeditions. She told the group that she had the “Secrets to Polar Travel,” five keys to a positive experience: Have your goals set ahead of time, assemble a diverse team, meticulous attention to detail, keep things in perspective, and have fun, celebrate, and take a look around and recognize the beauty of nature that surrounds you. She came to promote a book that she has written.
Her first expedition was in 1990, when she traveled around Baffin Island by dogsled, a 4000 km journey over a four-month span. In 1997, she was asked to lead the first woman’s expedition to the North Pole, somewhere she has traveled many times since, once following the trail that American explorer Robert Peary made in the early 1900’s.
She has also led two ski expeditions to the South Pole, one in 2003 and again in 2005.
When McNair is at her home and not on an expedition, she runs Northwind Water Adventure where she trains dogs for winter expeditions. Having this at home with her all the time has made it easy to get her two children, Sarah and Eric, involved in her interests. McNair and her children have skied un-supplied to the South Pole and then kite-skied back, in which they traveled upwards of 200 km in one day. They have also skied across the Greenland ice cap and are record holders the for best time across it.