Josée Auclair

Who is Josée Auclair?

Josée Auclair is a Canadian explorer.

She lives with her husband Richard Weber and their two sons, Tessum and Nansen in the Outaouais region of Quebec, Canada. Josée started cross-country skiing at the age of ten and competing at fourteen. She was a member of Canada's National Cross Country Ski Team and represented Canada at international championships namely in Sweden and Germany. Between 1979 and 1982, she won four national titles at 5 km and 7.5 km competitions and, during her years at the University of Vermont, she was a member of the relay team who kept winning the honours.

On five occasions between 1999 and 2004, Josée skied to the North Pole as part of the "last degree expeditions" organised by Canadian Arctic Holidays, the Arctic expeditions and adventure company she operates with her husband. She acted as the assistant-guide on four of these expeditions but in April 2001, it was in the shoes of the expedition leader that she guided the very first all-women team to ski to the North Pole from a Russian base. In 2006, Josée was back in the expedition leader role for a group of 9 people heading from the North Pole to Ward Hunt Island at the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut Canada. On April 27, the group had managed to reach latitude 88 50', however bad ice conditions endangered their safety and they had to be evacuated and brought back to the Borneo drifting station. In January 2007, Josée set foot in Antarctica for the very first time as a team of four women called upon her to be their expedition leader for a last degree expedition to the South Pole. She is therefore the first Canadian woman to have guided expeditions at both poles.