Sunniva Sorby is an expeditioner, historian, guide, citizen scientist, and Fellow of the

Royal Canadian Geographical Society The Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS; French: ''Société géographique royale du Canada'') is a Canadian nonprofit educational organization dedicated to imparting a broader knowledge and deeper appreciation of Canada—its people ...

. She is best known for her membership of the first women's team to reach the south pole in 1993.

Biography

Sorby was born in

Tønsberg Tønsberg , historically Tunsberg, is a city and municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, eastern Norway, located around south-southwest of Oslo on the western coast of the Oslofjord near its mouth onto the Skagerrak. The administrative ce ...

, Norway and raised in Canada. She completed her BA economics at

Bishop's University Bishop's University (french: Université Bishop's) is a small English-language Liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Lennoxville, a borough of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. The founder of the institution was the Anglican Diocese of Quebe ...

Lennoxville Lennoxville is an ''arrondissement'', or borough, of the city of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. Lennoxville is located at the confluence of the St. Francis and Massawippi Rivers approximately five kilometres south of downtown Sherbrooke. Lennoxvi ...

, Canada. She is an experienced expeditioner, historian, guide, citizen scientist, and Fellow of the

Polar engagement

Sorby works as a guide and historian of

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

, having visited the continent more than 100 times and also having skied across the Greenland icecap, across King George Island, Antarctica, and skied to the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...

. Her journey to the South Pole, which she reached on 14 January 1993, was as a member of the first women's team (under the leadership of

Ann Bancroft Ann Bancroft (born September 29, 1955) is an American author, teacher, adventurer, and public speaker. She was the first woman to finish a number of expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fa ...

) to do so. Sorby co-founded Hearts in the Ice, a social media project aimed at engagement on climate change and together with Norwegian Hilde Fålun Strøm, is the first woman to over-winter in

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...

without men. Focusing on the smallest possible

carbon footprint A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, place or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Greenhouse gases, including the carbon-containing gases carbo ...

while overwintering on

, Sorby and Strøm intend to pioneer the use of an electric snowmobile, and keep packaging of supplies to a minimum. Their overwintering period, running from August 2019 to May 2020, will be spent at 78°N in a 20 m² cabin called ''Bamsebu'' and their experience broadcast via social media''.''

References

External links

*https://www.heartsintheice.com/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Sorby, Sunniva Female polar explorers Living people Royal Canadian Geographical Society fellows Year of birth missing (living people)