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The North West Passage. Northwest Passage (Stan Rogers) chorus: Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea; Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
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Northwest Passage (Stan Rogers)chorus: Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea; Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lieThe sea route to the Orient for which so many died;Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bonesAnd a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.
Three centuries thereafter, I take passage overlandIn the footsteps of brave Kelso, where his "sea of flowers" beganWatching cities rise before me, then behind me sink againThis tardiest explorer, driving hard across the plain.
And through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking westI think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the restWho cracked the mountain ramparts and did show a path for meTo race the roaring Fraser to the sea.
How then am I so different from the first men through this way?Like them, I left a settled life, I threw it all away.To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many menTo find there but the road back home again.
The Northwest Passage • The Northwest Passage — a water route through the islands of northern Canada connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans — was a treasure explorers sought for centuries. The quest began as a search for a shorter shipping route between Europe and Asia. But, with each ship and life lost during the 300-year search, explorers seeking the Northwest Passage were also on a hunt for glory.
The Early Explorers • The Inuit were the first explorers of the Arctic. Most of their travels are undocumented, but the Inuit and other First Nations groups are considered to be the discoverers of the Northwest Passage.
Europeans • In the 16th century, Europeans set their sights on finding a shorter shipping route to Asia through the northern waterways. And over time, with each adventurer, the Northwest Passage was uncovered bit by bit, link by link. • In the 1570s, British explorer Martin Frobisher was one of the first Europeans to try to find the passage. Between 1576 and 1578, he took a small fleet to the northern waters. However, he didn't make it past the inlet that now bears his name.
Henry Hudson • Henry Hudson set out with a crew of 21 men in 1610, managed to navigate through what is now Hudson Strait, and discovered Hudson Bay. After great hardship wintering in James Bay, his crew mutinied, and Hudson, his son, and eight crew members were set adrift in an open boat. Only eight men made it back to England. • There is no contemporary portrait of Hudson. This evocative image of suffering and hopelessness was made 250 years after his death.
The 19th Century • In the 19th century the British government made a renewed effort to find the Northwest Passage. Britain felt that its interests in North America were threatened by Russian exploration in the Arctic. Russia had already established itself in Alaska and was moving eastward. And the means were at hand: after the Napoleonic Wars (1800-1815) Britain had a navy needing employment.
George Back, an officer in the Royal Navy, accompanied Franklin on both of his overland expeditions in the 1820s, and led two expeditions to the Arctic in the 1830s. In his land expedition of 1833-1835, he explored the Thlew-ee-choh, or Great Fish River (now the Back River), and the seacoast around it. He was an accomplished artist, whose sketchbooks, preserved at the National Archives, and the Scott Polar Research Institute, provide an important record of Arctic exploration. They were used to illustrate Franklin’s books as well as his own.
Having exhausted the possibilities of a route through Hudson Strait in the 18th century, the British started again with an expedition to Baffin Bay, and found a passage through Lancaster Sound. The explorers began to work their way through the labyrinth of Arctic islands by wintering in the Arctic and exploring by sledge in the spring while their ships were still frozen in. Winters spent in the Arctic increased the Europeans’ contact with the Inuit, whose knowledge of the area was invaluable; but the white men were slow to adopt Inuit survival techniques, and many lives were lost because of it.
Hudson Bay and the Hudson’s Bay Company • The discovery of Hudson Bay in 1610 was seen as a major breakthrough in the search for the Northwest Passage. For the next two centuries it became the focus of searches for a passage to the west. The founding of the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1670 established regular voyages to and from the Bay, and opened up the interior of the country to the fur trade. However by the end of the 18th century explorers by ship and overland had proved that the Bay was a dead end; if there was a passage, it was further north
Sir John Franklin • archaeological site on King William Island where the remains of his crew were found
December 6th [1851] As our stock of candles is very small, we therefore pass a great part of our time in darkness. Our principal occupations are walking and sleeping; reading and writing are out of the question, as we have hardly light enough for the most necessary duties. Wolves howl round the ship.... • September 9th [1852] To-day the captain summoned the crew on deck, and told them he was now convinced that the ice would not break up this year; we must therefore pass another winter here. He charged them not to let their spirits sink.... He added that we had now for a year subsisted on less than our usual rations.... In order to make the slender store last till next summer, it would be necessary now to reduce the allowance a little more, but that would suffice for the period of total inactivity.... One could see many dismal faces, but there was nothing to be done but to yield to necessity
Sir John Franklin. • However, the most infamous explorer was Sir John Franklin. • By order of the Queen, the British explorer took two ships to search for the elusive Northwest Passage from 1845 to 1848. He took a crew of 134 men and three years worth of supplies — including a piano, fine crystal, 1,200 books and the best technology of the time. Wives and girlfriends of crewmembers confidently sent their letters to China. • The explorers never returned.
The disappearance provoked what some say was the most expensive search-and-rescue mission ever mounted. Between 1848 and 1859, as many as 40 ships and more than 2,000 men searched for Franklin's fleet. In 1859, searchers found artifacts and bodies on King William Island. They found two documents that indicated the ships had become frozen in the ice. The notes also indicated that Franklin died on the ship in 1847. Survivors abandoned the vessel the year after, but all died trying to reach the mainland.
Scientists later dug up crewmembers bodies and discovered that lead poisoning from the soldering on tins of canned food may have been a factor in their deaths, and would have had an effect on their physical and mental stability. Even more gruesome, analysis of the crewmembers' remains pointed to cannibalism. • It wasn't all in vain — the links found during Franklin's doomed expedition and subsequent search parties helped map out the Northwest Passage.
Best known for the famous search for his lost expedition, Franklin was a bold explorer who mapped more of Canada's coast than any explorer except Vancouver
Roald Amundsen • However, the full route wouldn't be travelled until 1903, when Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen used a 21-metre fishing boat to travel its entire length. At various points along the way, he reportedly had to wait for months on end for the ice to melt enough so his vessel could pass through.
St. Roch • From 1940 to 1942, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner St. Roch navigated the passage from west to east for the first time as a show of Canadian sovereignty over the North. At the end of its journey, the St. Roch turned around and went back, making it the first vessel to complete the journey in both directions.
The Northwest Passage is coveted again • Perhaps the sacrifices were worth it. • The Northwest Passage is 7,000 kilometres shorter than the current shipping route through the Panama Canal. That's about two weeks saved in travelling time. From London to Tokyo via the canal, the distance is about 23,000 kilometres. Travelling east through the Suez Canal is also longer at 21,000 kilometres. The route through the passage is just 16,000 kilometres. • However, it's rarely used since it is frozen over for most of the year, making it impossible for all but the most heavily reinforced icebreakers to make it through.
But as scientists speculate that the Arctic ice is melting, the passage is becoming a coveted shipping route. And the issue of whether the Northwest Passage is an internal waterway, and therefore Canada's, or an international waterway open to all remains murky.
Petroleum Resources • Exploration for oil and natural gas on the Canadian shelf began with seismic tests in the late 1960s, and the first well was drilled in 1973. There was a brief period of production in 1986 when Gulf Canada Ltd (now GULF CANADA RESOURCES LIMITED) produced 50 400 m3 of oil from the Amauligak field and marketed it to Japan. Exploration continues with recent leases of sites in deeper water at the shelf break and over the continental slope. These sites will require floating drill rigs and, therefore, dependable protection from the forces of the Arctic pack ice in order to prevent oil spills.
Global warming opens up the waterways • In recent years, scientists have been urging the Canadian government to take more steps to stake its claim on the North. • Jacinthe Lacroix, senior science adviser for Environment Canada, says the ice in Canada's Arctic has shrunk 32 per cent since the 1960s. As well, she says, global warming has raised the temperature in Canada's northern archipelago by 1.2 degrees in the last century — twice the average rate the temperature is rising worldwide. Each year, the ice shrinks by 70,000 sq km, the equivalent of Lake Superior, she says. • "Some studies show, if it continues to melt at that speed, by the end of the century, there could be no more summer ice in the Arctic," Lacroix said. • Other scientists have echoed these findings, but there is disagreement on the amount of time involved. • In 2004, André Rochon, chief scientist on Canada's Amundsen research icebreaker, said climate change could make the route almost ice-free within 50 years, clearing the way for countries and companies to use the waterway. In June 2006, University of British Columbia Prof. Michael Byers said the Northwest Passage would be clear of ice during the summer months in 25 years, and he urged the government to take action. • Corporations worldwide have taken notice, says George Newton of the Arctic Research Commission. In June 2006, he warned that companies had recently invested $4.5 billion in ships that can navigate the ice. • Foreign Minister Peter MacKay has said he's aware that climate change was melting Arctic ice, and that more personnel are required to protect the Northwest Passage. • However, he has dismissed the prospect of foreign ships rushing to use the route. • "These waters are still very dangerous in terms of their navigation," MacKay said. "Free-floating ice is also a hazard. I would suggest in the short term you are not going to see necessarily increased passage there except for Canadian ships." • Lacroix agrees, saying that even if the passage were free from ice during the summer, large chunks of ice would drift down from the Arctic. "It will be very hazardous to do any shipping in this region," she said.
The Merchant Vessel Nanny ran aground Sept. 1 on a sandbar about 50 kilometres southwest of Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, in Simpson Strait within the Arctic passage. • The tanker, which is operated by Newfoundland-based Woodward's Oil Ltd., was transporting annual diesel supplies to remote Nunavut communities when it became stuck on its way to Taloyoak.
