An Interview with Barbara Hillary by Laura Kay, "What It Takes to Get There"
(page 2 of 3)

Photo: Courtesy Modernage Photo Services, NYC. © 2007 Barbara H. Hillary, all rights reserved.

Since you brought it up—did you study much about Matthew Henson before this trip?

I've read quite a bit about Matt Henson. I have tremendous respect for him and I feel pained in terms of the injustices that he suffered.

The Explorers Club took their time in honoring him. I guess you've been there, you've seen their wall of famous explorers and scientists?

Yes, I have seen the wall, very impressive.

Is your picture up there now?

No, I have been given an application which I will fill out and submit.

To get on the wall or to be a member?

To be a member. I have found the Explorers Club to be very supportive and very sensitive. As a matter of fact, I received a Special Acknowledgement at the Lowell Thomas Awards Dinner in October 2007.

That's great. Did they show you Matt's glove? I teach a polar class and we took the students there and they showed us Matt's glove.

Yes, I saw that.

Did you read about any of these other great explorers before your trip?

To some extent, but I was so totally involved in the challenge of getting there. I can't begin to relate how consuming it is: financially, physically, socially. Also, as I said before, you become so painfully aware of realities that you never thought about: the indifference of the black community, for instance.

At a conference I attended last month, one of the presentations was about how Matt Henson tried to have talks with black audiences after he came back from his trip with Robert Peary. They weren't very popular because people didn't really know what he was talking about; it was just so out of their realm of experience. Also because Henson wasn't given all of the awards and publicity that Peary got.

I'm a member of the Cook Society, and I went to their centennial where there was a great, tremendous amount of information disseminated and papers read. According to one of the historians, Henson was snowblind when he returned from the trip—and Peary just gave him $50 and said "goodbye."

In children's adventure literature, an important part of the book is about the adventurer coming back and telling their story. What it has been like for you to tell your story?

My story has been received with enthusiasm and excitement. And I enjoy relating it because it is not like some controlled Hollywood script. It's so far from that. It's so real life. It's learning about yourself. Challenging yourself. Thinking and re-thinking concepts. The experience moved me into an arena where existing beliefs were challenged, and some existing beliefs were reinforced.

I saw the News Center 4 Sue Simmons interview. Were you also interviewed by any of the big talk shows?

I was invited to the Ellen DeGeneres Show, and I was flown out to California. But unfortunately, she was ill. And I couldn't wait, I had to come back for business in New York. Jay Leno reached out to me, but at that time I was involved with Ellen DeGeneres. Those are the two major national shows. When I return from the South Pole, I hope Oprah hears about it. [laughing]

I would hope so.

Some adventurers have a really hard time readjusting when they come back home. How has the return been for you? And how long was it before you decided you wanted to go to the South Pole as well?

I decided I wanted to go to the South Pole as soon as I came back. The adjustment has not been that difficult, but now I am in the process of reliving some of the same obstacles that faced me before. For the trip to the South Pole, the base is $37,000. That's a lot of money to me, I don't know about other people. I'm trying to add another dimension to this trip, but my first goal is to make sure that I'm financially eligible to go.

And how's that going?

Not good.

Are you chartering your own airplane or going on an established tour?

It's an established group that's going to the South Pole.

I understand you lived there?

I spent 13 months at the South Pole, 1984 to 1985. I wasn't the first woman to winter there, but I was the fifth or sixth. The station was smaller then, and had a big geodesic dome. Now the new station looks like condos. It's very different now. But I still dream about it sometimes.

What do you think you will do differently on your southern trip?

Question the outfits that arranged the trip, question everything pertaining to the trip. I have a body of knowledge that I amassed going to the North Pole. And that body of knowledge includes things that went wrong, the lies that I heard, behavior patterns I didn't think were ethical.

I've learned many things by walking the roads of life that reinforce and enhance what I have always tried to subscribe to, and that is—to question. Not to be a blind believer. Because when we're talking this type of money, this type of sacrifice, this type of exposure, it pays to be a Doubting Thomas.

The organizations that put together these trips, are they very rigid in their ideas and what they expect everybody to do?

These organizations are all middlemen—they do not own their own plane. So they all funnel through one outfit that controls everything.

And that was true in the North also?

At the North Pole, it's a little different but basically the same. Russians control the operations at the stops to the North Pole. However, one big difference is that they build a camp when the season starts. A plane comes in, they parachute out, test the ice—and then they bring in and set up this entire camp.

So it's really their camp. It's not that they are borrowing someone's landing field.

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