Jade Hameister

Jade's father, a former investment banker, is the executive chairman of property developer Hamton, a company with $1.2 billion worth of projects.[2] He is quoted as saying "As a parent, you have a choice on how you support your kids; you could give her a house deposit or a car but this has given her a set of wings" and "We are in a very privileged position where the messages she's trying to achieve will never be compromised by a need for a corporate sponsor."[3]

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.[4]

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.[5]

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

Hameister's North Pole expedition was captured in a National Geographic documentary On Thin Ice: Jade’s Polar Dream which aired in 170 countries.[6]

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.[7]

Progress for the first three days was slow, as Hameister had to work her way up through the West coast icefall in crampons. The team found themselves navigating around melt ponds and crevasses in the maze-like environment which meant constant dead ends and endless back-tracking to find a viable route.

Once through the icefall, Hameister began her grind up to the top of the polar icecap reaching around 2,850m above sea level at day 17.

Temperatures at night dropped to −20 degrees, but the warm conditions during the day meant that soft surface snow did not grant an easy descent down from the top of the polar plateau. At one point, Hameister resorted to smearing butter on the skins of her skis to create more glide and stop the snow balling up under her feet.

Hameister was hit early in the trip by a blizzard but due to the warm weather she was pelted with rain instead of snow, forcing her to cut the days short to try and dry out in her tent.[8]

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.[9] 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 dragged a sled weighing around double her body weight from sea level up to around 3000m in altitude on the polar plateau, where temperatures sit at around minus 30 degrees. This contained all her food and fuel for the journey. Her days were filled with 24-hour daylight and an intense solitude; no plant or animal life is seen this far south, just snow, ice, rock and sky.

After Hameister's 2016 TED talk was posted to YouTube, several comments were posted that said "make me a sandwich." Upon reaching the South Pole, she posed for a photo while holding a ham and cheese sandwich. In her social media post she invited the commenters to "ski 37 days and 600km to the South Pole and you can eat it."[10]

Hameister is passionate about shifting the focus for young women from how they appear to the possibilities of what they can do and also about raising awareness about the impact of climate change on the Earth's beautiful and fragile polar regions.

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.[11] Jade also attended the National Geographic Explorers Symposium in Washington DC in 2016 and 2017.

Hameister documented her polar hat-trick of expeditions in her book, My Polar Dream, published by Pan Macmillan Australia in September 2018.[12] 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.[13] In September she became one of The Australian Financial Review's 100 Women of Influence in the Young Leader category.[14]

Hameister was awarded Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours for her "service to polar exploration".[15]

• Official website