Polar challenge: A dentist from Co Derry has become the first Irish woman to walk to the magnetic north pole.
Dr Hannah Shields, from Kilrea, was part of a team that came second place in a polar challenge race in the high Arctic last week.
She and her fellow team-mate, Dr Chris von Tulleken, finished the 280-mile haul, just 11 days after setting out from Polaris Mine in the former north-west territories of Canada.
The challenge involved eight international teams in all, and was filmed by several television networks.
Competitors were given food and fuel supplies twice during the race, and had to pull up to a 13-stone weight behind them on a sleigh in sub-zero temperatures and Arctic winds, but with almost 24 hours of daylight.
Dr Shields (38) is no stranger to hostile conditions, having climbed to within 325ft of the summit of Everest last year before she was hit with frostnip and had to retreat.
She says that she seriously considered returning to Everest this year with Cork climber Pat Falvey and Dr Clare O'Leary.
Dr O'Leary, from Bandon in Cork, is hoping to become the first Irishwoman to climb the 29,035-ft mountain from the Nepalese approaches later this month.
If the dentist still harbours such ambitions, her sights are currently set elsewhere.
Her participation in the Fujitsu Polar Challenge 2004 was part of her training programme for next year, when she will be the only female member of a Northern Ireland group attempting to break the world record for the first unsupported crossing to the geographic North Pole.
This spring 2005 adventure has been put together by Richard Dougan, leader of the successful 2003 Northern Irish Everest expedition and an outdoor pursuits instructor and lecturer from Redrock, Co Armagh.
With him and Dr Shields will be Belfast jockey and National Hunt racing legend, Richard Dunwoody, chiropodist Martin Duggan, and senior mountain leadership instructor, Peter Dew.
The expedition will be unsupported, and will cross 775km from Ward-Hunt island on the north-west tip of Canada's Ellesmere island on foot.
All equipment will have to be towed in sleighs, and there will be no dog teams, no supply points and no air drops.
The participants expect to burn up some 10,000 calories a day in the effort as they battle drifting and softening ice.
As team leader, Richard Dougan, said, this will "truly be an adventure off the map".
