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Northwest Passage

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Popular Northwest Passage routes through the Canadian archipelago
This article describes the route through the Canadian Arctic. For other meanings, see Northwest Passage (disambiguation).

The Northwest Passage is a route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through the Arctic archipelago of Canada.

Between the end of the 15th century and the 20th century, Europeans attempted to discover a commercial sea route north and west around the American continents. The English called the hypothetical route the Northwest Passage, while the Spanish called it the Strait of Anián. The desire to establish such a route motivated much of the European exploration of both coasts of North America.

In 1539, Hernán Cortés commissioned Francisco de Ulloa to sail along the peninsula of Baja California in search of the Strait of Anián. 1576 – 1578 Martin Frobisher undertook three voyages to the Canadian Arctic in order to find the passage. Frobisher Bay, which he discovered, is named after him. In July 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who had written a treatise on the discovery of the passage and was a backer of Frobisher's, claimed the territory of Newfoundland for the English crown. On August 8, 1585, the English explorer John Davis entered Cumberland Sound, Baffin Island. In 1609, Henry Hudson sailed up the river that now bears his name in search of the passage; he later explored the Canadian Arctic and Hudson Bay.

In the first half of the 19th century, parts of the Northwest Passage were explored separately by a number of different expeditions, including voyages by John Ross, William Edward Parry, James Clark Ross; and overland expeditions led by John Franklin, George Back, Peter Warren Dease, Thomas Simpson, and John Rae

In 1845 a well-equipped two-ship expedition led by Sir John Franklin attempted to force a passage through the Arctic ice from Baffin Bay to the Beaufort Sea. When the expedition failed to return, a number of relief expeditions and search parties explored the Canadian Arctic between the two bodies of open water resulting in final charting of a possible passage. Traces of the expedition have been found including records that indicate that the ships became icelocked in 1846 near King William Island, about half way through the passage, and were unable to extricate themselves. Franklin himself died in 1847 and the rest of the party in 1848, after abandoning the ships and attempting to escape overland by sledge. While starvation and scurvy are the most likely reasons why all 129 members of the expedition perished, other causes have been suggested as well, and explaining the failure of the expedition has become something of a cottage industry. The expedition took 8000 tins of food. Unfortunately, the tins were sealed with lead, which is poisonous. The lead would have contaminated the food and made the crews ill. They would have become weak and bad tempered, and have found it hard to make good decisions. In 1981, Owen Beattie, an anthropologist, found part of a bleached human skull. This led to further investigations and findings, using forensic evidence and techniques, and examining three well-preserved bodies of three seamen, exhumed from the permafrost of Beechey Island over 138 years after their death. Laboratory tests revealed heavy doses of lead poisoning.

The North-West Passage (1874), a painting by John Everett Millais representing British frustration at the failure to conquer the passage

During the search for Franklin, a party led by Robert McClure traversed the Northwest Passage from west to east in the years 1850 to 1854, partly by ship and partly by sledge. McClure's ship was trapped in the ice for three winters near Banks Island, at the western end of Viscount Melville Sound. Finally McClure and his party – who were by that time dying of starvation – were found by searchers travelling by sledge from one of the ships of Sir Edward Belcher's expedition, and returned with them to Belcher's ships, which had entered the sound from the east.

The Northwest Passage was not conquered by sea until 1906, when the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who had sailed just in time to escape creditors seeking to stop the expedition, completed a three-year voyage in the converted 47-ton herring boat Gjøa. At the end of this trip, he walked into the city of Eagle, Alaska, and sent a telegram announcing his success. His route was not commercially practical; in addition to the time taken, some of the waterways were extremely shallow.

The first single-season passage was not accomplished until 1944, when the St. Roch, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner commanded by Henry Larsen, made it through.

On July 1, 1957, U. S. Coast Guard cutter Storis departed in company with the U. S. Coast Guard Cutters Bramble (WLB-392) and SPAR (WLB-403) to search for a deep draft channel through the Arctic Ocean and to collect hydrographic information. This historic transit ended a 450-year search for the Northwest Passage – a route for large ships across the top of North America. Upon her return to Greenland waters, Storis became the first U.S. registered vessel to circumnavigate the North American continent. Shortly after her return in late 1957, the Storis was reassigned to her new homeport of Kodiak, Alaska.

In 1969 the SS Manhattan made the passage, accompanied by the Canadian icebreaker CCGS John A. Macdonald. The Manhattan was a specially reinforced supertanker that was sent to test the viability of the passage for the transport of oil. While the Manhattan succeeded, the route was deemed not cost effective and the Alaska Pipeline was built instead.

In 1981, Canadian folk singer Stan Rogers recorded the song "Northwest Passage", based on the history of attempts to establish the route. It appeared on his album of the same title.

In 1985 the U.S. icebreaker Polar Sea was sent through. The U.S. Government made a point of not asking permission from the Canadians for the passage. They claimed that it was simply a cost effective way to get the ship from Greenland to Alaska and that there was no reason for them to be asking permission to travel through international waters. The Canadian government maintained that the waters were internal to Canada, and issued a declaration in 1986 reaffirming Canadian rights to the waters. However, the USA, European Union (as an organisation - not the member states whose foreign affairs were completely sovereign matters outside of the EU structure at the time), and Japan, among other countries, refused to recognize the Canadian claim.

In the summer of 2000, several ships took advantage of thinning summer ice cover on the Arctic Ocean to make the crossing. It is thought that global warming is likely to open the passage for increasing periods of time, making it attractive as a major shipping route. Routes from Europe to the Far East save 4000 km through the passage, as compared to the current routes through the Panama Canal.

In late 2005, it was alleged that U.S. nuclear submarines had been traveling the passage without Canadian approval, sparking Canadian outrage. In his first news conference after the federal election then underway, then Prime Minister-designate Stephen Harper rebuked an earlier statement made by the American ambassador that Arctic waters were international, stating the Canadian government's intention to enforce its sovereignty there.

In October, 2005, a 47-foot aluminmum sailboat, "Northabout," built and captained by Jarlath Cunnane, a retired construction manager, completed the first east-to-west circumnavigation of the pole by a single sailboat using the increasingly open Northwest Passage to get from Ireland to the Bering Strait. The voyage from the Atlantic to the Pacific was completed in a very fast time of 24 days -- from sailing into Lancaster Sound off Baffin Bay on August 7th to reaching the Bering Strait, Alaska on September 1, 2001. The Northabout then cruised in Canada for two years. The return trip along the coast of Russia was slower, starting in 2004 but with an ice stop/winter over in Khatanga, Siberia - hence the return to Ireland via the Norwegian coast in October of 2005. On January 18, 2006, The Cruising Club of America awarded Jarlath Cunnane their Blue Water Medal, an award for "meritorious seamanship and adventure upon the sea displayed by amateur sailors of all nationalities."

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