NNSL (Jun 01/98) - It's been decades since the feminist movement began but women are still out there trailblazing.

Take Matty McNair, for example. The co-owner of Iqaluit's NorthWinds Arctic Adventures just celebrated the first anniversary of the Women's Polar Relay Expedition -- the first all-woman trek to the geographical North Pole.

"This was the first women's expedition. There have been women on other trips but most of them are predominantly male. I'm not sure why. It's partly because of the more physical climate," says McNair, who completed the journey on skies, pulling a sled and without the assistance of dogs.

Her past polar expeditions include a 4,000-kilometre dog sled trip around Baffin Island and numerous trips up island. But this time, McNair led a team of 20 ordinary British women -- with no previous winter experience -- to the top of the world.

"It was a relay, a British women's expedition, and the concept behind it was there were five groups of four women who would each push the route as far as they could in two to three weeks and then the next group would come in," says McNair.

The veteran of winter adventure says she wasn't at all nervous or afraid of the trek over hundreds of kilometres of sea ice.

"I've been teaching winter with groups and winter survival since the early 1970s. Professionally, I've done this for a very long time. I live in the Arctic, ice is not new to me or navigating," says McNair.

She got involved in the project when her business partner and husband, Paul Landry, ran into the organizers at a marketing show.

"He asked if they had a leader yet and Paul's so great at marketing, he said there's only one person who could lead that -- my wife."

Once her contract was signed and the $74,000 worth of food and gear was purchased, McNair headed out to Resolute with her assistant guide and awaited the arrival of the first group of women.

"We flew from Resolute to Eureka, which basically puts you on the 74th meridian. It's the classical starting place," says McNair of the onset of the journey that covered 416 nautical miles northward and took a total of 499.5 hours (74 days) to complete.

"It must be a world record. The slowest journey to the North Pole," laughs McNair.

Upon reaching the North Pole, after avoiding hypothermia and frostbite and despite wet feet and a few spontaneous swims, McNair says she played in all the different time zones and planted a flag.

"You're standing at the top of the world where all the times meet and we played around, running through all the time zones, but it's not like the South Pole and you get there and stick your flag in and it stays there. We woke up about one nautical mile away from where we went to sleep."

McNair says she has a number of new expeditions planned for 1999-2000.