Mina Hubbard

Born in Ontario in 1870, Mina Benson Hubbard trained as a teacher and later as a nurse in New York. There she met journalist and explorer Leonidas Hubbard Jr.; after his death on a Labrador expedition in 1903, she resolved to return and finish the journey he had begun.

In 1905, she led her own expedition across Labrador, traveling by canoe with Indigenous and local guides and successfully mapping and documenting a route to Ungava Bay. The achievement drew wide attention, especially because it unfolded alongside a rival expedition and challenged expectations about who could lead major exploration in the North.

She later wrote about the journey and became known as a lecturer as well as an explorer. Mina Hubbard died in 1956, and she is remembered for her courage, endurance, and for claiming her own place in a field that rarely welcomed women at the time.