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Northwest Passage (view source)
Revision as of 12:08, September 18, 2016
, 12:08, September 18, 2016→History
Two centuries of trial and error at sea by explorers John Davis (1585), William Baffin (1615, 1616), Sir John Ross (1829-33), Sir William Parry (1819), Frederick William Beechey (1825-28), and Sir George Back (1836-37) did much to add to the knowledge of the Canadian Arctic; this was supplemented by overland explorers Henry Kelsey (1688-91), Samuel Hearne (1770-72), and Sir Alexander Mackenzie (1789) as they explored much of Canada west of Hudson Bay to the Arctic.
Two centuries of trial and error at sea by explorers John Davis (1585), William Baffin (1615, 1616), Sir John Ross (1829-33), Sir William Parry (1819), Frederick William Beechey (1825-28), and Sir George Back (1836-37) did much to add to the knowledge of the Canadian Arctic; this was supplemented by overland explorers Henry Kelsey (1688-91), Samuel Hearne (1770-72), and Sir Alexander Mackenzie (1789) as they explored much of Canada west of Hudson Bay to the Arctic.
The most tragic loss of life occurred during the [[Franklin expedition]] which began in 1845. The British ships HMS ''Erebus'' and HMS ''Terror'', under the command of Captain Sir John Franklin, made an attempt to complete the navigation of the passage; documents and evidence found later revealed both ships were trapped by ice within Victoria Strait west of King William Island and were subsequently abandoned, leaving 129 men to die of a combination of disease, starvation, and exposure by the time the first organized searches had begun for them in 1848<ref>http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic50-1-36.pdf</ref>. The ships themselves would not be seen again until ''Erebus'' was discovered in 2014<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/03/hms-erebus-lost-ship-whose-crew-resorted-to-cannibalism-found-in-canadian-arctic/</ref>, and ''Terror'' in 2016<ref>http://www.livescience.com/56110-doomed-shipwreck-hms-terror-possibly-found.html</ref><ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/12/hms-terror-wreck-found-arctic-nearly-170-years-northwest-passage-attempt</ref>.
The most tragic loss of life occurred during the [[Franklin expedition]] which began in 1845. The British ships HMS ''Erebus'' and HMS ''Terror'', under the command of Captain Sir John Franklin, made an attempt to complete the navigation of the passage; documents and evidence found later revealed both ships were trapped by ice within Victoria Strait west of King William Island and were subsequently abandoned, leaving 129 men to die of a combination of disease, starvation, and exposure by the time the first organized searches had begun for them in 1848<ref>http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic50-1-36.pdf</ref>. Franklin's ships would not be seen again until ''Erebus'' was discovered in 2014<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/03/hms-erebus-lost-ship-whose-crew-resorted-to-cannibalism-found-in-canadian-arctic/</ref>, and ''Terror'' in 2016<ref>http://www.livescience.com/56110-doomed-shipwreck-hms-terror-possibly-found.html</ref><ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/12/hms-terror-wreck-found-arctic-nearly-170-years-northwest-passage-attempt</ref>.
The first one-way completion of sorts was begun by a Franklin searcher, Robert McClure, who had entered the passage from the Pacific in 1852 onboard ''Investigator''; his sailing progress was no better than Franklin's, having been icebound for two winters before he and the crew left the ship to sledge overland and meet up with another rescue ship that had come in on the Atlantic side in 1854. The rescue ship - HMS ''Resolute'' - was herself part of a larger expedition that had hoped to find Franklin and his men; this expedition was itself locked in ice, and four of the ships, ''Resolute'' included, had to be abandoned.
Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen - who would later be the first to reach the South Pole - became the first man to make a successful navigation of the Northwest Passage by sea. Onboard ''Gjöa'', a converted herring trawler, Amundsen set sail in 1903 on a journey that lasted three years, ending in 1906 in Nome, Alaska.
==Today==
The Northwest Passage is claimed by Canada as an integral part of its territory; the United States claims the waterways surrounding the islands are international, and therefore can be transited by anyone. Changes to climate have resulted in less ice during the summers recently, allowing for increased shipping traffic of various sorts; however, icebreakers are always present, and many commercial ships have been outfitted with ice-breaking bows. Transits of the passage have begun in the 1980s, with about 4 per year during that time to 20-30 per year from 2009-2013<ref>4 per year in the 1980s to 20-30 per year in 2009-2013</ref>.
==References==
==References==