Northwest Passage

With the discovery of the exotic nations of the Orient in the 15th century came the race to find a shortcut from the Americas. After Magellan found a passage to the Far East through the straight bearing his name at the southernmost tip of South America, many believed that there would be a similar passage through the northern ocean. The quest to find the Northwest Passage was no easy task. For almost four hundred years explorers, such as Martin Frobisher, John Davis, Henry Hudson, John Franklin, James Cook, John Ross, and William Parry, tried to find this elusive passage; and, although they failed to navigate it, their efforts were not in vain. These early polar explorers were instrumental in the discovery and mapping of Canada's Arctic.

William Parry and his crew came the closest to successfully navigating and charting the Northwest Passage on his first expedition 1819–20. They made their way through Lancaster Sound and overwintered at Winter Harbour on Melville Island. While exploring Melville Island they sailed out of the Sound to a westward longitude of 113°48', the farthest west any ship had reached. They discovered Banks Island and had, in fact, traveled most of the way through the Northwest Passage, but they were blocked by pack ice blown in from the Beaufort Sea. Having come so close, Parry was sent back a second and third time in 1821–23 and 1824–25, but to no avail; he was halted both times by dense sea ice.

Roal Amundsen became the first to successfully sail the Northwest Passage from east to west on his 1903–06 expedition. This voyage was made on the Gjoa, a 47-tonne sloop. Amundsen went on to become one of the most important explorers of the Antarctic.

During World War II, Royal Canadian Mounted Police aboard the original St. Roch took more than two years to travel through Canada's Arctic, after being trapped by ice for two winters. In fall 2000, a Canadian police boat, the St. Roch II, took a mere month to travel the same route. The boat met no pack ice during its eastward journey from Tuktoyaktuk, NWT, to Baffin Bay. Could this be a sign of melting arctic ice and perhaps of climate change?