A route through the S Arctic Ocean, Arctic Archipelago, N Canada, and along the N coast of Alaska. From the 16th-c attempts were made to find it, but not until 19036 was it first traversed by Amundsen. The first commercial ship, an ice-breaking tanker, completed the route in 1969.
The Northwest Passage is a sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans 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 North America.
At the same time explorers were attempting to find this westbound passage between the Atlantic and Pacific north of the North American mainland, others were competing to find an eastbound passage north of Russia, i.e. a Northeast passage.
First attempts after the Little Ice Age
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 took three trips to what is now the Canadian Arctic in order to find the passage. 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. In 1609, Henry Hudson sailed up the river that now bears his name in search of the passage;
In the first half of the 19th century, parts of the Northwest Passage were explored separately by a number of different expeditions, including those by John Ross, William Edward Parry, James Clark Ross; Sir Robert McClure was credited with the discovery of the Northwest Passage in 1851 when he looked across McClure Strait from Banks Island and viewed Melville Island. However, this strait was not navigable to ships at that time, and the only usable route, linking the entrances of Lancaster Strait and Dolphin and Union Strait was discovered by John Rae in 1854.
Although most Northwest Passage expeditions originated in Europe or on the east coast of North America and sought to traverse the Passage in the westbound direction, some progress was made in exploration of its western end as well.
Sir John Franklin expedition
In 1845, a well-equipped two-ship expedition led by Sir John Franklin sailed to the Canadian Arctic to chart the final unknown parts of the Northwest Passage. When it failed to return, a number of relief expeditions and search parties explored the Canadian Arctic, resulting in final charting of a possible passage. Traces of the expedition have been found, including records that indicate that the ships became ice-locked in 1846 near King William Island, about half way through the passage, and were unable to extricate themselves.
McClure expedition
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. 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.
Explorations by John Rae
The expeditions by Franklin and McClure were in the then-current tradition of British exploration: Well-funded ship-borne expeditions using modern technology, and usually including British Naval personnel. While Franklin and McClure attempted to explore the passage by sea, Rae explored by land, using dog sleds and employing techniques he learned from the native Inuit.
Amundsen expedition
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.
Later expeditions
The first single-season passage was not accomplished until 1944, when the Canadian ship St. Roch, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner commanded by the Canadian RCMP officer Henry Larsen, made it through to reinforce Canadian sovereignty of the Northwest Passage.
Only one person had ever sailed a ship through the famed Northwest Passage, Norwegian Roald Amundsen in 1903-06, from east to west by way of Rae Strait.
On July 1, 1957, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Storis departed in company with 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.
In 1969, the SS Manhattan made the passage, accompanied by the Canadian icebreaker John A. The Manhattan was a specially reinforced supertanker sent to test the viability of the passage for the transport of oil.
In June 1977, Dutch sailor Willy de Roos left Belgium to attempt crossing the Northwest Passsage in his 45-foot steel yacht Williwaw.
In October, 2005, a 47-foot aluminum 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.
International waters dispute
The Canadian government claims that the waters of the Northwest Passage are internal to Canada. The Canadian government issued a declaration in 1986 reaffirming Canadian rights to the waters.
In late 2005, it was alleged that U.S. nuclear submarines had travelled the passage without Canadian approval, sparking Canadian outrage. In his first news conference after the federal election, then Prime Minister-designate Stephen Harper contested an earlier statement made by the American ambassador that Arctic waters were international, stating the Canadian government's intention to enforce its sovereignty there.
The allegations arose after the U.S. Navy released photographs of the USS Charlotte surfaced at the North Pole. A submarine travelling between oceans by way of the Pole would have to travel over a thousand kilometres out of its way to use the Northwest Passage (as opposed to simply heading directly to either ocean). Furthermore, shallow waters and underwater navigational uncertainties would force it to move very slowly and carefully within the Northwest Passage to avoid running aground;
On April 9, 2006, Canada's Joint Task Force North declared that the Canadian military will no longer refer to the region as the Northwest Passage, but as the Canadian Internal Waters.
Effects of global warming
Around the time of the Viking Sagas and for at least two more centuries (a conservative interval from 1000–1200 AD that also happens to include the dates allotted to some of the larger Norse ships), prior to the Little Ice Age the climate was not only warmer, but the sea-level in the Arctic was also quite different from that of the present day. Between the glacial rebound and global cooling, land levels of the land masses about the Northwest Passage have risen upwards to the order of 20m in the centuries after the Viking times.
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.
Trivia
In 1981, Canadian folk singer Stan Rogers recorded the song "Northwest Passage", based on the history of attempts to establish the route.
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