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From the article: "The Spanish called it the ." This sentence was added in the most recent revision, 05:11, 5 Mar 2004, by Decumanus, but it is incomplete. What did the Spanish call it? Edward 10:38, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Melting Arctic ice risks Canada-US territorial dispute
There was this news report on Yahoo! News today Melting Arctic ice risks Canada-US territorial dispute. It looks like there are a number of items in the article that should be incorporated into the Misplaced Pages article, but I don't know enough about the Northwest Passage to know what's worth including and what's just trivia. 11:34, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
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The article as currently written contains the following sentence:
"In late 2005, it was revealed that U.S. nuclear submarines had been traveling the passage without Canadian approval, sparking Canadian outrage."
A Google news search turns up no conclusive 2005 reports of US submarines in waters claimed by Canada. Canadian media did report a U.S. nuclear submarine surfaced near the North Pole in late 2005 on a trip between oceans; these reports claimed it therefore likely transited Canadian waters to get there.
This was then used in later articles to allege US submarines were using the Northwest Passage. Since the Northwest Passage runs east-west, not north-south, it would not be used as a route to the North Pole. A submarine transiting the Passage would go nowhere near the Pole.
I think it's unlikely that U.S. nuclear submarines would use the Northwest Passage as a shortcut between the Altantic and Pacific Oceans. It's more likely that they transit up the east coast of Greenland and then around the top of Greenland before heading across to the Bering Strait. Although this route is approximately 1000 miles longer, it's all in deep water without obstacles until a submarine nears the Bering Strait. That would allow a nuclear submarine to transit the Arctic Ocean at maximum speed. Such a transit would also pass close to the North Pole. At no time would a submarine on this route pass anywhere near waters claimed by Canada.
The Northwest Passage is shallow and contains islands. Because of the inherent uncertainties associated with navigating underwater without external references, standard submarine doctrine requires using slow speeds when moving through shallow confined waters. This becomes even trickier when the submarine has to worry about avoiding ice projections from above. The requirement to travel slowly for 800 to 900 miles through the Passage would more than offset the distance reduction, so it is more likely that American submarines are taking the faster, longer, safer route around Greenland. references:
USS Charlotte http://en.wikipedia.org/USS_Charlotte_%28SSN-766%29
Not standing on guard in the North http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1135810213632&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795
Canada: Don’t Tread on Us http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.18952/article_detail.asp
Harper vows to boost western defence http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=94deb3f7-2b10-4a6f-997b-4aaf5c3e4ea0&k=43913
Smithsonian's submarine navigation page http://americanhistory.si.edu/subs/operating/attackcenter/navigation/
military.com: Submarine grounding discussion http://forums.military.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/2171941282/m/74900578613"