Joanna Kafarowski 
The Polar Adventures of a Rich American Dame 
A Life of Louise Arner Boyd

The first comprehensive biography of Louise Arner Boyd — the intrepid American socialite who reinvented herself as the leading female polar explorer of the twentieth century.



Born in the late 1880s to a gritty mining magnate who made his millions in the California gold rush and a well-bred mother descended from one of New York’s distinguished families, society beauty Louise Arner Boyd was raised during a glittering era.



After inheriting a staggering family fortune, she began leading a double life. She fell under the spell of the north in the late 1920s after a sailing excursion to the Arctic Ocean. Over the next three decades, she achieved international notoriety as a rugged and audacious polar explorer while maintaining her flamboyant lifestyle as a leading society woman. Yet despite organizing, financing, and directing seven daring Arctic expeditions between 1926 and 1955, she is virtually unknown today.

Table of Content

• Illustrations


• Maps


• Prologue


• Part One: An Unlikely Heroine


• Chapter One: An Adventuress is Born


• Chapter Two: Shaped by Adversity


• Chapter Three: “Diana of the Arctic”


• Part Two: The Call to Adventure


• Chapter Four: Chasing Amundsen


• Chapter Five: The Ice Queen Cometh


• Chapter Six: Greenland Beckons


• Chapter Seven: An Obsessive Pursuit


• Part Three: Scaling the Heights


• Chapter Eight: Contributing to Science


• Chapter Nine: Honour and Glory


• Chapter Ten: The North Pole And Beyond


• Epilogue: The Legacy of Louise Arner Boyd


• Acknowledgements


• Appendix


• Notes


• Bibliography


• Photo Credits


• Index

About the author

Joanna Kafarowski, Ph.D., is passionate about researching and writing about the lives of women in polar history. She is the author of The Polar Adventures of a Rich American Dame: A Life of Louise Arner Boyd, the first comprehensive biography of a female Arctic explorer. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.