Astrid Furholt, First Woman to Walk to The South Pole

31st January 2023

Norwegian adventurer and oncology nurse Astrid Furholt became the first woman to ski to the South Pole in Roald Amundsen’s tracks

It took her just over sixty days, covering more than 800 miles on skis while pulling a 350-pound sledge.

Five years ago, in January 2018, Norwegian adventurer and oncology nurse Astrid Furholt became the first woman to ski to the South Pole in Roald Amundsen’s tracks.

By then she had already crossed the Greenland ice cap, traversed Spitsbergen, and was one of the very few to have crossed the Campo Hielo de Norte or Northern Patagonian icefield.

Furholt, who was invited to the recent Shackleton autumn school in Athy, Co Kildare, spoke about surviving polar storms and her clear memories of the day she reached her target.

“One of those things that was clear to me...I saw a picture in my head of my patient who told me to live my life while I was alive,” she said.

Hear more in this interview for Wavelengths below

Afloat.ie · Astrid Furholt Interview

Furholt’s interview on her project, Finding Your South Pole, at the Shackleton autumn school last October is below

Published in Wavelength Podcast

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Astrid Furholt

About The Author

Lorna Siggins

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Lorna Siggins is a print and radio reporter, and a former Irish Times western correspondent. She is the author of Search and Rescue: True stories of Irish Air-Sea Rescues and the Loss of R116 (2022); Everest Callling (1994) on the first Irish Everest expedition; Mayday! Mayday! (2004); and Once Upon a Time in the West: the Corrib gas controversy (2010). She is also co-producer with Sarah Blake of the Doc on One "Miracle in Galway Bay" which recently won a Celtic Media Award

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