Why Isabella Bird, the Victorian explorer forgotten by history, became my heroine | Ruby Wax

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Cutting open bears, wrangling cows: retracing her voyage across the Rocky Mountains made me realise how extraordinary this woman was, says the comedian and writer Ruby Wax

Cutting open bears, wrangling cows: retracing her voyage across the Rocky Mountains made me realise how extraordinary this woman wasPhotograph: Royal Geographical Society/Getty ImagesPhotograph: Royal Geographical Society/Getty Imagesveryone has heard of Amelia Earhart, the great aviator. Or Florence Nightingale, the revered statistician.

Isabella was a talented author, writing about her adventures as she travelled the equivalent of three times around the world, by boat, on horseback and foot. But she also suffered from debilitating chronic pain. After spinal surgery in England to remove a tumour, in 1873 doctors advised her to get out to the fresh air of the Rocky Mountains to heal her general malaise.

She weathered freezing ice storms wearing just a kaftan over her Victorian dress for warmth. She slept in the snow for three days – when we climbed Pikes Peak, we braved snowy conditions but only for a few hours. Despite our layers of technical thermals, we were left with burned skin from the perishing conditions.

“There’s nothing western folk admire so much as pluck in a woman,” Isabella wrote. And it was a lesson she lived by. She was hardcore.

 

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