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.

Sir Robert McClure

Sir Robert McClure (1807-1873) was a British naval officer who, while searching for the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin, discovered the Northwest Passage.

Robert McClure was born in Wexford, Ireland and educated at Eton (an English private school) and Sandhurst (the British military academy). He entered the Royal Navy in 1824. He first traveled to the Arctic in 1836-1837 as mate on the Terror under the command of Sir George Back on an expedition that went to Hudson Bay and explored the Melville Peninsula. He was promoted to lieutenant on his return to England in September 1837. He then served on British ships in the Great Lakes and in the Caribbean.

In 1848 McClure was chosen to be an officer on the first ship sent out to look for the missing expedition of Sir John Franklin, serving under James Clark Ross. They returned to England in the fall of 1849 without finding any trace of Franklin. McClure was then appointed to command the Investigator under the general command of Captain Richard Collinson in the Enterprise on a second attempt to find Franklin. This time they proposed to solve the mystery of Franklin's disappearance by attacking the problem from the opposite side—from the Pacific and Alaska.

They sailed together from England on January 10, 1850 but were separated by a storm in the Pacific Ocean soon after they had passed through the Straits of Magellan. As McClure's ship headed through the Pacific, it was hit by a sudden storm that knocked down all three masts. The Investigator arrived in Honolulu on July 1, 1850, only to find that Collinson had sailed the day before.

By cutting through the Aleutian Islands rather than following his instructions and sailing west of them, McClure reached Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia before Collinson. For unknown reasons that have since caused much speculation, he did not wait for his superior but set out on his own. McClure's goal was to reach Melville Island in the northwestern Arctic, which had been visited by William Edward Parry as long ago as 1819. He rammed the ship through one patch of pack ice and then had to use five rowboats to tow the Investigator past Point Barrow. Forced by the pack ice of the Beaufort Sea to travel eastward along the coast of Alaska to the Mackenzie delta, McClure turned northwards east of the Mackenzie and reached the south shore of Banks Island, which had been spotted from the north by Parry, who named it in honor of Sir Joseph Banks.

Off the east coast of Banks Island, McClure saw a channel, later named Prince of Wales Strait, with a clear stretch of water leading to the northeast. As he sailed up it, he realized that if this body of water connected with Melville Sound, already sailed by Parry, he would have found the long-sought-after Northwest Passage.

By then, however, it was getting late in the year. On September 17, 1850, at a point about 30 miles from Melville Sound, McClure was forced to stop by increasing ice and rising winds. Wind pushed the Investigator 30 miles farther back down the channel. The growing ice toppled the ship on its side and threatened to crush it against some rocks. The men on the ship were convinced they were doomed and broke out the store of alcohol. On September 28, however, the storm died, the ship righted itself and was iced in for the winter.

On October 21, 1850, McClure took seven companions and headed north over the ice in sledges. On the fifth day, they reached the north end of Banks Island. On October 27, 1850, they climbed a small mountain and looked out on Melville Sound—McClure and his men had found the Northwest Passage. On the return trip, McClure ran ahead of the rest of his crew, got lost, and arrived barely alive after a sleepless night fighting his way through a storm.

The Investigator stayed locked in the ice during the winter of 1850-1851. During that time, McClure sent out three land parties to try to find traces of the Franklin expedition, without any success. In the summer of 1851 he tried to sail through Prince of Wales Strait into Melville Sound once again. This time he was stopped by ice 25 miles short of his goal. He then decided to sail south and try to get around Banks Island from the west side. Initially, he made very good time—300 miles in three days. Then, on August 20, 1851, the ship got caught in the ice once again. It was wedged in a small channel of open water too narrow to turn around in—so McClure continued north for another week. Once he had sailed around the northern end of Banks Island into Melville Sound he was once again stopped by ice.

McClure found a small harbor on the north coast of Banks Island, which he named Mercy Bay, and spent the winter of 1851-1852 there. While his men spent their time hunting, McClure took a small party north to Melville Island, hoping to find another one of the ships sent out to search for Franklin. He did find a note from Francis McClintock who had been there the previous June but who had long since left.

During the summer of 1852, McClure tried to get the Investigator free from the ice that blocked Mercy Bay but to no avail. By September when it became obvious that they were going to have to spend another winter in the Arctic, food supplies were dangerously low. Two of the junior officers showed signs of insanity, and 20 men were ill with scurvy. The following spring, McClure proposed to split up his crew into three different groups to try to get help overland.

In the meantime, the British government had sent out ships to look for McClure and Collinson, who had also disappeared. In September 1852 Captain Henry Kellett found a note on Melville Island that McClure had left five months previously indicating his location. Also iced in by the winter, Kellett could not go look for McClure until the following year. On April 6, 1853, shortly before he was to send out his land parties, McClure and his first officer were walking on the beach discussing the burial of a crew member who had died of scurvy. They looked up to see a strange man running down the beach towards them. It was Lieutenant Bedford Pim, an officer from Kellett's ship sent to fetch them.

At first, McClure refused to abandon the Investigator, and three more men died while waiting for supplies. When only four men volunteered to stay with him, McClure was forced to give up and leave the Investigator in Mercy Bay. Once his men reached Kellett's ship and crowded on board, it was too late in the year to depart. The following year, on the orders of Sir Edward Belcher, they abandoned Kellett's two ships and used supply ships to sail back to England via Baffin Bay, arriving home in September 1854.

McClure was given credit for discovering the Northwest Passage, even though he had not been able to navigate it. He was promoted to captain, knighted, and given a reward of £10,000. The journal of his voyage was edited and published in 1856. He then served in the Pacific Ocean from 1856 to 1861. After that, he returned to the Admiralty Office in London. He was promoted to rear admiral in 1857 and vice admiral in 1873 shortly before his death.

Further Reading

There are three original accounts of the Investigator expedition by participants in it. There is also an account by the ship's doctor, Alexander Armstrong: A Personal Narrative of the Discovery of the North-West Passage (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1857) and by a Moravian missionary, Johann August Miertsching, who served as interpreter with the Inuit: Leslie H. Neatby, editor, Frozen Ships: The Arctic Diary of Johann Miertsching, 1850-54 20 (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1967).

There are two fairly recent studies of the expedition: J.H. Nelson, "The Last Voyage of H.M.S. Investigator, 1850-53 and the Discovery of the North West Passage," Polar Record, vol. 13 (1967), no. 87 and Leslie H. Neatby, The Search for Franklin (London: Arthur Barker, 1970).

Other histories of Arctic exploration have good summaries of McClure's voyage: Jeannette Mirsky, To the Arctic! The Story of Northern Exploration from Earliest Times to the Present (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948); George Malcolm Thomson, The Search for the North-West Passage (New York: Macmillan, 1975); and Pierre Berton, The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909 (New York: Viking, 1988; paperback edition, New York: Penguin, 1989). □