Jade Hameister

Hameister's North Pole expedition was captured in a National Geographic documentary On Thin Ice: Jade’s Polar Dream which aired in 170 countries.

Hameister was awarded Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours for her "service to polar exploration".

Her "Polar Quest" expeditions have been captured as part of a National Geographic feature-length documentary which will document both her Greenland and her upcoming South Pole expedition. The film is due for release mid-2018.

Hameister embarked on the final leg of her Polar quest at the end of November 2017. This journey saw Hameister cover over 600 km from the Ross Ice Shelf at the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole. She completed the trek in 37 days and reached the South Pole on 10 January 2018. Hameister claimed a handful of titles including the youngest person in history as well as the first Australian woman ever to ski from the coast to the South Pole.

Hameister documented her polar hat-trick of expeditions in her book, My Polar Dream, published by Pan Macmillan Australia in September 2018. It was published as Polar Explorer by Feiwel & Friends in the United States.

In March 2018, Hameister was named one of Vogue Australia's 2018 Game Changers. In September she became one of The Australian Financial Review's 100 Women of Influence in the Young Leader category.

The second expedition saw Hameister complete the 550 km traverse the Greenland ice-cap departing from Kangerlussuaq on the West Coast and finishing at Isortoq Hut on the East Coast on 4 June 2017. Spending roughly 9 hours a day on the ice covering approximately 25 km a day, Hameister pushed herself to complete the expedition in 27 days, making her the youngest woman in history to cross Greenland Ice caps.

In April 2016, Hameister (then aged 14) travelled 150 km from 88 degrees 40 over the drifting polar sea ice to arrive at the North Pole to become the youngest person (male or female) in history to ski to the North Pole from anywhere outside 89 degrees.

Hameister was awarded the Australian Geographic Society's Young Adventurer of the Year after her 2016 North Pole expedition.

She delivered a TEDx Talk in August 2016 and in early 2017 presented to a combined live audience of over 12,000 students at ImagiNATION in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Jade also attended the National Geographic Explorers Symposium in Washington DC in 2016 and 2017.

Each day, Hameister skied with her 50 kg sled for 8–10 hours navigating around open 'leads' of water or climbing over 'pressure ridges' in the ice, the travel was complicated and the days were physical and arduous. After establishing camp each night, the expedition found, on waking the next morning that they had drifted off course on a strong easterly ocean current ('negative drift'). Temperatures were as low as −40C and Hameister faced other risks such as falling through thin ice into the freezing Arctic waters and polar bears.

Jade Hameister OAM (born 5 June 2001) is an Australian woman who, at age 14, became the youngest person in history to pull off the 'polar hat-trick', skiing to the North Pole, the South Pole, and crossing the second largest polar ice cap on the planet – Greenland. These three missions saw Hameister cover over 1,300 km (totaling almost four months on ice).