When Edith 'Jackie' Ronne (1919 - 2009) took off on the adventure that would make her the first American woman to set foot on the Antarctic continent in 1946, she was ill-prepared - at least when it came to packing. "My suitcase contained little more than a good suit, a good dress, nylon stockings and high heeled shoes." Never mind, because Jackie naturally had two things in common with the greatest explorers: creative intelligence and an optimistic outlook. When her husband, the Norwegian explorer Finn Ronne, tried talking her last minute into joining his quest to map the world's last unknown coastline, she was initially wary. "No woman had ever gone that far South, and the crew was suspicious." But love and her lust for adventure conquered all. "I would have done anything to support my husband and the expedition. I would have gone to the moon. It was the moon." When the 15 months were over, Jackie was proud: proud of the success of the expedition, proud that her improvised jobs as the crew's historian and correspondent made her the first woman to overwinter in pinguin paradise Antarctica as a working member of an expedition. Her efforts were appreciated so much, that she had a newly-discovered Antarctic site - about the size of the state of Texas - named after her: Edith Ronne Land. Now an official explorer, Jackie would return 15 times to that cold, barren 'moon'. "There's something about the Antarctic that draws you back," Jackie once said. "You might have had it up to your eyebrows, but after a while, the raw, icy magnificence brings you back."

And never, ever give up. “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. “He is just braver five minutes longer.”