SAY the health-care worker you met recently is about to retire. "Have a nice life," you might tell him or her, thinking travel or some other hobby will fill the time until the inevitable.

But not if she's Barbara Hillary, 75. My new heroine recently became the first black woman known to reach the North Pole. The North Pole? Yep. The North Pole.

I mentioned the health profession because Ms. Hillary is a retired nurse with 55 years in that role.

And since you've already done the math, you're right: this woman is no spring chicken.

Gracefully aging doesn't aptly describe the Barbara Hillary I've read about. Spunky and full of vim are more like it. And, she kicked lung cancer to the curb when she was 67.

Probably her years dealing with crotchety patients and doctors prepared her for unusual pursuits in retirement.

Last month she stood on top of the world, a venture that started after she learned that no black woman is believed to ever have reached the North Pole. That part of her inspiring story began after a trip to Quebec to dog sled and to Manitoba to photograph polar bears.

"What's wrong with this picture?" she asked about no black woman ever reaching the North Pole. "So I sort of rolled into this, shall we say," she said.

Now the history books can list Ms. Hillary, 75, retired nurse, cancer survivor, as the second African-American to reach the top of the world after a day long trek on cross-country skis.

Almost exactly 98 years earlier, on April 6, 1909, American explorer Robert Peary's guide, Matthew Henson, became the first black man to get to the North Pole. Minnesotan Ann Bancroft, 51, was the first woman to do so - in 1986 - and the South Pole in 1992 with a group of women.

Ms. Hillary comes across as someone who could have been a creative writing professor, a politician, or a CEO. That's not to say health-care professionals should be boring or lack a commanding zest for life, either.

When the New Yorker asked Ms. Hillary about more conventional travel to world-renowned cities, she said, "You go there when you're propped up in a casket." She said she could have raised the money it took to make the trip north, then added, "Maybe I would've had to switch to dog food the last couple of weeks." Before setting out for the North Pole, this is what she told the Associated Press about dealing with hungry polar bears: "Before I arrived, the word was out that soul food was coming."

This is certainly not a woman pining away the time, reminiscing about how it used to be, or longing for bygone days that can't be recaptured.

She didn't forgo making the trip because she struggled to raise the $21,000 it cost for the expedition. Funding requests to the Coalition of One Hundred Black Women and Ebony magazine fell on deaf ears. Too bad they can't say they backed her, now that she's made history.

New York City Mayor Bloomberg sent a form letter telling her the benefits of senior centers. They should be embarrassed. As Ms. Hillary asked, what good would a senior center do at the North Pole?

A major illness would keep most people from pursuing such a venture. That's the point, though: Ms. Hillary is no ordinary woman. She and cyclist Lance Armstrong have a lot in common: They both defied a major illness and then refused to tip-toe through the rest of their lives.

Judging from the glimpse I've had of Ms. Hillary, she could be a Baby Boomer, since she has that I-can-do-anything personality. In fact, age is nothing to her. So what that she's 75? She was going to the North Pole, by golly, and to get ready, she got a personal trainer, took cross-country skiing lessons, and worked out at a gym.

That was a good idea, too, since instead of taking a helicopter to the North Pole as some do, she skied, and skiing "wasn't a popular sport in Harlem" where she grew up.

This may not be the last we hear about Barbara Hillary. Now she's talking about becoming a global-warming activist.

She is another example that one can have amazing experiences in retirement, as she's one more retiree who has shown that unusual goals are attainable in the golden years.

Rose Russell is a Blade associate editor.

E-mail rrussell@theblade

First Published May 12, 2007, 9:10 a.m.