North Pole visit part of traveler’s adventures
Photos by Donnita Fisher
Left: Billi Cosper kept extensive travel journeys during her adventures around the world.
Right: At the North Pole, Billi Cosper took part in a ceremony where, to illustrate the coldness, ice cubes were placed down participants’ backs.
Toward the end of her life, Billi Cosper couldn’t remember where she had been yesterday, but she did remember places she’d visited years before.
Mrs. Cosper died Jan. 12 at the age of 88, but shortly before Christmas she shared the story of her visit to the North Pole (Lapland, Finland.)
“I remember it was cold and I wanted to be warm!” she said. “They had taken us to an army surplus type of store and gotten us heavy coats and hats and things but it was still cold.”
It got even colder, she said, when during a ceremony to mark the occasion, one of the guides “slipped an ice cube down our backs.”
“It was to tell us how cold it really was outside,” Mrs. Cosper said.
Although she, herself, didn’t see Santa, Mrs. Cosper said he was there. “He was out working I guess, but there really is a Santa’s Workshop. On my visit there was also three ladies from Cuba there and they were so excited that they would get to tell Santa their wish list.”
To get to Santa Land, members of her party went via a big canoe-type boat, Mrs. Cosper said, and then walked across the frozen swamp on blocks. “Oh, we saw reindeer and everything,” she said. “It was an adventure.”
Mrs. Cosper, who lived in Madisonville before moving to Canton to be near family, traveled extensively during her younger days.
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