North-West Passage, a 1,450-kilometre (900-mls.) sea route which lies off the northern coast of Canada, some 800 kilometres (500 mls.) north of the Arctic Circle, and links the Atlantic with the Pacific. From the earliest times it was sought to obtain a commercially practical passage to the Far East.
The First Voyages to Find the Passage.
The search for the North-West Passage, which was always primarily an English undertaking, was concentrated in three periods, though there was also a rather drawn-out finale. In 1555 Sir Humphrey Gilbert (
c.1539–83) petitioned Elizabeth I to allow him to undertake ‘the discovering of a passage by the northe, to go to Cataia [Cathay, the name at that time given to China], & all other the east partes of the worlde’ provided that he and his brothers were given a monopoly for trade through the passage. Nothing came of this but Gilbert followed his petition with a missive to his brother Sir John Gilbert in 1566, which he called ‘A discourse of a discoverie for a new passage to Cataia’. This now famous document circulated in manuscript for ten years before it was published and quite possibly helped to inspire the expeditions which were launched to find the passage during the last quarter of the 16th century. Gilbert himself was eventually granted a charter in 1578, but his first voyage, started that year ended in disaster at the hands of the Spanish at the Cape Verde Islands. His second, in 1583, reached Newfoundland, which he took possession of in the queen's name and founded the first English colony in North America. On his way back across the Atlantic he went down with his ship during a
storm off the Azores.
Other expeditions that were mounted during this period were the three led by
Martin Frobisher in 1576–77, and 1578, and the three (1585, 1586, 1587) made by the English
navigator John Davis (
c.1550–1605), the inventor of
Davis's quadrant, who penetrated as far north and west as Baffin Bay. Many of the names still on the map of the Arctic are memorials to Davis's endeavours, among them the great strait that bears his name. In 1579
Sir Francis Drake was the first to try and find a way to the passage from the Pacific, with no more success than his contemporaries who were attempting to find it from the Atlantic.
The next expeditions of any consequence to seek the elusive passage were those of
Henry Hudson and William Baffin (1584–1622). Baffin, who usually sailed as a
pilot, made five voyages, and penetrated to the northern end of the bay which now bears his name. The last voyages of this first series were those of Luke Fox (1586–1636) and Thomas James (
c.1593–1635) in 1631. Their expeditions proved conclusively what earlier
navigators had strongly suspected: there was no passage through the North American continent from the western shores of Hudson Bay. Foxe Channel and Basin to the north of the bay and James Bay on the south commemorate their endeavours.
Explorations by the Hudson Bay Company.
The discoveries of these early adventurers led to the formation in 1670 of the Hudson Bay Company to exploit the trade in furs, and during the 18th century it began to be criticized for its lack of interest in attempts to find a North-West Passage, which by its charter it was bound to do. Stung by this criticism it began a rather erratic search, consisting of minor sea voyages around Hudson Bay and various land journeys up into the north. The most important of these was the overland expedition of Samuel Hearne (1745–92) who, in 1771, discovered the long and winding Coppermine River and traced it to the Arctic Ocean; and the one led by the Canadian fur trader Sir Alexander Mackenzie (
c.1755–1820), who in 1789 voyaged from the Great Slave Lake, down the river that was named after him, to the Arctic Ocean. Between these two dates
Captain James Cook, on his third voyage of circumnavigation, explored much of the coast of Alaska and penetrated through the Bering Strait to Icy Cape. Together, these expeditions revealed a more detailed understanding of the area, and in the third phase, which spanned much of the 19th century, the goal was more to fill in the remaining bits of the puzzle than to find a commercially viable route to the Far East.
The Admiralty Expeditions.
This final phase was initially stimulated by amendments of an Act which had originally been passed by Parliament in 1745. This offered a reward of £20,000 to any British subject, excepting those on naval vessels, who discovered a North-West Passage through Hudson Strait, but there had been few takers. So twenty years later the naval restrictions were removed and the area of search was changed to north of
latitude 70° between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Then in 1817 the Act was further altered to provide a sliding scale of rewards for approaching the Pole and for reaching certain
meridians of
longitude.
It was this last amendment that inspired the first of the great 19th-century British
Admiralty expeditions. Commodore John Ross (1777–1856), with two ships, was dispatched in April 1818 and reached as far as Lancaster Sound. However, his progress was stopped by what he considered a high range of hills, which he named Croker's Mountains. He turned back and was in England again by November, and there followed a long and acrimonious argument over whether the mountains really existed.
Another expedition was sent to Lancaster Sound the following year, but this time Ross's former lieutenant William Edward Parry (1790–1855) was given command. His expedition sailed in May 1819 in the
Hecla, a
bomb ketch, and the
Griper, and did not return until October 1820. Not only was Parry the first to winter in those northern latitudes, his was also one of the most successful of the many expeditions. For Croker's Mountains proved to be a myth and Parry reached Melville Island, where he wintered before returning. However, hopes that Parry's success would make possible a transit of the North-West Passage were dashed when he, and then the Admiralty, mounted further expeditions.
Then, in 1829, John Ross returned to search for the passage in the
paddle steamer Victory, but after discovering and surveying the Boothia Peninsula and King William Island, his ship became
ice bound. He endured four winters there before being rescued in 1833 by an expedition led by George Back (1796–1878). During these rescue operations, Back discovered both Artillery Lake and the Great Fish River. While Ross was marooned his nephew and second in command James Clark Ross (1800–62) located and discovered the
north magnetic pole while on a sledging expedition.
The Passage Discovered and Navigated.
In 1845
Sir John Franklin's expedition set out to find the North-West Passage. When he failed to return numerous searches were mounted to find him, and it was these that finally mapped the passage. One of them, commanded by Robert McClure (1807–73) in the
Investigator, left Plymouth in January 1850 and entered the Arctic Sea through the Bering Strait. His two ships were separated off Cape Horn and though McClure successfully rounded Point Barrow, his other ship was prevented from doing so by
ice until the following year. When both failed to return yet another expedition, under the command of Captain Edward Belcher (1799–1877), was dispatched to try and find Franklin as well as McClure. He set sail in 1852 with five ships under his command, approaching the passage from the east.
Meanwhile, the
Investigator had penetrated both the Prince of Wales and McClure Straits, and by doing so proved the existence of a North-West Passage, but McClure then had to abandon his ship in Mercy Bay and set off overland. It was the historic meeting between this overland party, and one sent from one of Belcher's ships, the
Resolute, that put the final seal on the discovery that so many had sought for so long. However, in April 1854 Belcher was forced to abandon all his ships, and faced a court martial for doing so, but was acquitted. No more expeditions to the North-West Passage occurred for nearly 50 years. Then, on 16 June 1903, the Norwegian explorer Roald
Amundsen set out to navigate the passage in a small fishing boat. This he managed to do over a period of three years, arriving in Alaska on 31 August 1906.
It was ironic that after all the huge expense of the British Admiralty expeditions, which lost many warships and hundreds of men, Amundsen, with a crew of six in a small fishing
smack, should be successful. However, it was not until 1940–2 that the passage was negotiated west to east. This was achieved by the
St Roch, a
gaff-rigged, 323-ton
schooner. She was commanded by Staff Sergeant Henry A. Larsen, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who then sailed her east to west as well. The
St Roch is now on display in the Vancouver Maritime Museum.
The North-West Passage in the 20th and 21st Centuries.
In 1969 the 150,000-ton
tanker Manhattan, protected by a special bow and a steel belt to protect her hull, transited the North-West Passage in both directions to test the practicability of shipping Alaskan oil via the passage. However, the difficulties proved so great, and the tanker suffered such damage, that it was decided to build an overland pipeline instead. But some authorities have estimated that at the present rate of
climate change, the North-West Passage will be clear of ice by the end of the 21st century. This will make it an important sea route for commercial traffic as it will cut over 11,000 kilometres (7,000 mls.) off the route from Europe to Asia for those vessels which can use the
Panama Canal, and over 19,000 kilometres (12,000 mls.) for those which have to go via Cape Horn.
