Boyd, Louise Arner

Boyd, Louise Arner, 1887–1972, American arctic explorer, b. San Rafael, Calif. She led a series of scientific explorations on the east coast of Greenland. The expedition of 1933, sponsored by the American Geographical Society, was described in her The Fiord Region of East Greenland (1935); on those of 1937 and 1938 a submarine ridge between Bear Island and Jan Mayen was made known; that of 1941 was undertaken for the National Bureau of Standards. In World War II she was (1942–43) a technical expert in the War Dept. In 1955, Boyd flew over the North Pole, the first woman to do so successfully; she photographed the area around the North Pole and the Arctic Sea. She wrote The Coast of Northeast Greenland (1948).