Woman hits polar goal

NEW YORK – The bone-numbing trek to the North Pole is riddled with enough perils to make a seasoned explorer quake: Frostbite threatens, polar bears loom and the ice is constantly shifting beneath frozen feet.

But Barbara Hillary took it all in stride, completing the trek to the world’s northernmost point last month at the age of 75.

She is one of the oldest people to reach the North Pole, and is believed to be the first black woman on record to accomplish the feat.

Hillary, of Averne, N.Y., grew up in Harlem and devoted herself to a nursing career and community activism.

At 67 and during retirement, she battled lung cancer.

Five years later, she went dog sledding in Quebec and photographed polar bears in Manitoba.

Then she heard that a black woman had never made it to the North Pole.

“I said, ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’ ” she said. “So I sort of rolled into this, shall we say.”

In 1909, Matthew Henson made history as the first black man to reach the Pole, though his accomplishment was overshadowed by the presence of his white colleague, Robert Peary.

Hillary enrolled in cross-country skiing lessons and hired a personal trainer, who finally determined she was physically fit for the voyage.

Her lack of funds didn’t stop her, either. Hillary scraped together thousands of dollars and solicited private donors. On April 18, she arrived in Longyearben, Norway, where people carry guns to ward off hungry polar bears. “Before I arrived, the word was out that soul food was coming,” she joked.

On April 23 Hillary set off on skis with two trained guides for the daylong trip.

As the sunlight glinted off the ice, distorting her gaze, Hillary struggled beneath a load of gear and pressed on.

In her euphoria at reaching the Pole, she forgot the cold and removed her gloves, causing her fingers to become frostbitten.

Standing at the top of the world, she could have cared less. The enormous expanse of ice and sky left Hillary, for once in her long life, speechless.