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100-571: A number of polar explorers searching for the Northwest Passage sailed through the strait, including Roald Amundsen . The strait is named after British polar explorer James Clark Ross . 69°50′N 096°30′W  /  69.833°N 96.500°W  / 69.833; -96.500  ( James Ross Strait ) This Kitikmeot Region , Nunavut location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Northwest Passage The Northwest Passage ( NWP )

200-792: A South Pole expedition . He left Norway in June 1910 on the ship Fram and reached Antarctica in January 1911. His party established a camp at the Bay of Whales and a series of supply depots on the Barrier (now known as the Ross Ice Shelf ) before setting out for the pole in October. The party of five, led by Amundsen, became the first to reach the South Pole on 14 December 1911. Following

300-515: A commercial sea route north and west around North America. The Northwest Passage represented a new route to the established trading nations of Asia . England called the hypothetical northern route the "Northwest Passage". The desire to establish such a route motivated much of the European exploration of both coasts of North America, also known as the New World. When it became apparent that there

400-505: A doctor, a promise that Amundsen kept until his mother died when he was aged 21. He promptly quit university for a life at sea. Amundsen was in the Uranienborg neighbourhood an occasional childhood playmate of the pioneering Antarctica explorer Carsten Borchgrevink . When he was fifteen years old, Amundsen was enthralled by reading Sir John Franklin 's narratives of his overland Arctic expeditions. Amundsen wrote "I read them with

500-586: A failed attempt in 1918 to reach the North Pole by traversing the Northeast Passage on the ship Maud , Amundsen began planning for an aerial expedition instead. On 12 May 1926, Amundsen and 15 other men in the airship Norge became the first explorers verified to have reached the North Pole. Amundsen disappeared in June 1928 while flying on a rescue mission for the airship Italia in

600-615: A fervid fascination which has shaped the whole course of my life". Amundsen joined the Belgian Antarctic Expedition as first mate at the age of 25 in 1897. This expedition, led by Adrien de Gerlache using the ship the RV Belgica , became the first expedition to overwinter in Antarctica. The Belgica , whether by mistake or design, became locked in the sea ice at 70°30′S off Alexander Island , west of

700-613: A lead-based solder ). Another researcher has suggested botulism caused deaths among crew members. Evidence from 1996, that confirms reports first made by John Rae in 1854 based on Inuit accounts, suggests that the last of the crew may have resorted to cannibalism of deceased members in an effort to survive. Roald Amundsen This is an accepted version of this page Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen ( UK : / ˈ ɑː m ʊ n d s ən / , US : /- m ə n s -/ ; Norwegian: [ˈrùːɑɫ ˈɑ̂mʉnsən] ; 16 July 1872 – c.  18 June 1928 )

800-653: A map showing a narrow and crooked Strait of Anian separating Asia from the Americas . The strait grew in European imagination as an easy sea lane linking Europe with the residence of Khagan (the Great Khan) in Cathay (northern China ). Cartographers and seamen tried to demonstrate its reality. Sir Francis Drake sought the western entrance in 1579. The Greek pilot Juan de Fuca , sailing from Acapulco (in Mexico) under

900-494: A month fighting his way through Hudson Strait. In September 1619, he found the entrance to Hudson Bay and spent the winter near the mouth of the Churchill River. Cold, famine , and scurvy destroyed so many of his men that only he and two other men survived. With these men, he sailed for home with Lamprey on July 16, 1620, reaching Bergen , Norway, on September 20, 1620. René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle built

1000-414: A new ship, Maud , lasted until 1925. Maud was carefully navigated through the ice west to east through the Northeast Passage . With him on this expedition were Oscar Wisting and Helmer Hanssen, both of whom had been part of the team to reach the South Pole. In addition, Henrik Lindstrøm was included as a cook. He suffered a stroke and was so physically reduced that he could not participate. The goal of

1100-638: A northern Atlantic passage to the Spice Islands . An English expedition was launched in 1576 by Martin Frobisher , who took three trips west to what is now the Canadian Arctic in order to find the passage. Frobisher Bay , which he first charted, is named after him. As part of another expedition, in July 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert , who had written a treatise on the discovery of the passage and

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1200-402: A quarrel within the group, and Amundsen sent Johansen and the other two men to explore King Edward VII Land . A second attempt, with a team of five made up of Olav Bjaaland , Helmer Hanssen , Sverre Hassel , Oscar Wisting and Amundsen, departed base camp on 19 October. They took four sledges and 52 dogs. Using a route along the previously unknown Axel Heiberg Glacier , they arrived at

1300-621: A record which stood for 236 years, before being blocked by ice. On May 9, 1619, under the auspices of King Christian IV of Denmark–Norway , Jens Munk set out with 65 men and the king's two ships, Einhörningen (Unicorn), a small frigate , and Lamprenen (Lamprey), a sloop, which were outfitted under his own supervision. His mission was to discover the Northwest Passage to the Indies and China. Munk penetrated Davis Strait as far north as 69°, found Frobisher Bay, and then spent almost

1400-565: A series of Arctic waterways collectively known as the Northwest Passages , Northwestern Passages or the Canadian Internal Waters . For centuries, European explorers, beginning with Christopher Columbus in 1492, sought a navigable passage as a possible trade route to Asia, but were blocked by North, Central, and South America, by ice, or by rough waters (e.g. Tierra del Fuego ). An ice-bound northern route

1500-411: A ship's hull . Cargo routes may thus be slow and uncertain, depending on prevailing conditions and the ability to predict them. Because much containerized traffic operates in a just-in-time mode (which does not tolerate delays well) and because of the relative isolation of the passage (which impedes shipping companies from optimizing their operations by grouping multiple stopovers on the same itinerary),

1600-672: A small ship and hugged the coast. Before the Little Ice Age (late Middle Ages to the 19th century), Norwegian Vikings sailed as far north and west as Ellesmere Island , Skraeling Island and Ruin Island for hunting expeditions and trading with the Inuit and people of the Dorset culture who inhabited the region. Between the end of the 15th century and the 20th century, colonial powers from Europe dispatched explorers to discover

1700-563: A way through the continent. Cartier became persuaded that the St. Lawrence was the Passage; when he found the way blocked by rapids at what is now Montreal , he was so certain that these rapids were all that was keeping him from China (in French, la Chine ), that he named the rapids for China. Samuel de Champlain renamed them Sault Saint-Louis in 1611, but the name was changed to Lachine Rapids in

1800-569: Is little evidence, it was said that Amundsen had a brief affair with his landlady in Antwerp —until he came home and found her dead after an apparent suicide. His biographer Tor Bomann-Larsen also suggests a romantic relationship between Amundsen and Sigrid Castberg, wife of the lawyer Leif Castberg from Gjøvik , in the years before the South Pole expedition, a relationship Amundsen broke off after that expedition in favour of Kiss Bennett. Author Julian Sancton noted that in his younger years, Amundsen

1900-648: Is the sea lane between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean , along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Arctic Archipelago of Canada. The eastern route along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Siberia is accordingly called the Northeast Passage (NEP). The various islands of the archipelago are separated from one another and from Mainland Canada by

2000-592: Is usually reported that ocean thawing will open up the Northwest Passage (and the Northern Sea Route ) for various kind of ships, making it possible to sail around the Arctic ice cap and possibly cutting thousands of miles off shipping routes. Warning that the NASA satellite images suggested that the Arctic had entered a "death spiral" caused by climate change, Professor Mark Serreze , a sea ice specialist at

2100-590: The Antarctic Peninsula . The crew endured a winter for which they were poorly prepared. By Amundsen's own estimation, the doctor for the expedition, the American Frederick Cook , probably saved the crew from scurvy by hunting for animals and feeding the crew fresh meat. In cases where citrus fruits are lacking, raw meat – particularly offal – from animals often contains enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy. In 1903, Amundsen led

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2200-676: The Milne Inlet , on Baffin Island 's north shore, were bound for ports in Asia. Those freighters did not sail west through the remainder of the Northwest Passage; they sailed east, rounded the tip of Greenland, and transited Russia's Northern Sea Route. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Northwestern Passages as follows: On the West. The Eastern limit of Beaufort Sea from Lands End through

2300-496: The Parry Channel and then south through Peel Sound , James Ross Strait , Simpson Strait and Rae Strait . They spent two winters at King William Island , in the harbor of what is today Gjoa Haven . During this time, Amundsen and the crew learned from the local Netsilik Inuit about Arctic survival skills, which he found invaluable in his later expedition to the South Pole. For example, he learned to use sled dogs for

2400-584: The Royal Norwegian Navy , tried to fly from Wainwright, Alaska , to Spitsbergen across the North Pole. When their aircraft was damaged, they abandoned the journey. To raise additional funds, Amundsen traveled around the United States in 1924 on a lecture tour. In 1925, accompanied by Lincoln Ellsworth , pilot Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen , flight mechanic Karl Feucht and two other team members, Amundsen took two Dornier Do J flying boats ,

2500-659: The Strait of Georgia . To fully explore this new inland sea, an expedition under Dionisio Alcalá Galiano was sent in 1792. He was explicitly ordered to explore all channels that might turn out to be a Northwest Passage. In 1776, Captain James Cook was dispatched by the Admiralty in Great Britain on an expedition to explore the Passage. A 1745 act, when extended in 1775, promised a £20,000 prize for whoever discovered

2600-493: The University of Alberta , examined remains from sites associated with the expedition. This led to further investigations and the examination of tissue and bone from the frozen bodies of three seamen, John Torrington , William Braine and John Hartnell , exhumed from the permafrost of Beechey Island . Laboratory tests revealed high concentrations of lead in all three (the expedition carried 8,000 tins of food sealed with

2700-602: The Vancouver Expedition (led by George Vancouver who had previously accompanied Cook) surveyed in detail all the passages from the Northwest Coast . He confirmed that there was no such passage south of the Bering Strait. This conclusion was supported by the evidence of Alexander MacKenzie , who explored the Arctic and Pacific Oceans in 1793. In the first half of the 19th century, some parts of

2800-419: The sailing ship , Le Griffon , in his quest to find the Northwest Passage via the upper Great Lakes . He made his way across Lake Erie and Lake Huron , making port on Mackinac Island before landing at Washington Island at the mouth of Green Bay to trade for furs with Pottawatomie Indians. La Salle stayed behind while the ship sailed back to Mackinac with the furs. Le Griffon disappeared in 1679 on

2900-700: The Alaskan region. His ship was wrecked off the Kamchatka Peninsula , as many of his crew were disabled by scurvy. The Spanish made several voyages to the northwest coast of North America during the late 18th century. Determining whether a Northwest Passage existed was one of the motives for their efforts. Among the voyages that involved careful searches for a Passage included the 1775 and 1779 voyages of Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra . The journal of Francisco Antonio Mourelle , who served as Quadra's second in command in 1775, fell into English hands. It

3000-711: The Amundsen flight. Amundsen was a lifelong bachelor, but he had a long-time relationship with the Norwegian-born Kristine Elisabeth ('Kiss') Bennett, the wife of an Englishman, Charles Peto Bennett . He met her in London in 1907 and they remained close for many years; Amundsen kept the relationship a secret from everyone outside his intimate circle. Later, he became engaged to Bess Magids, an American divorcée whom he had met in Alaska. Though there

3100-585: The Arctic Ocean, thereby proving that there was no strait connecting Hudson Bay to the Pacific Ocean. Most Northwest Passage expeditions originated in Europe or on the east coast of North America, seeking to traverse the Passage in the westbound direction. Some progress was made in exploring the western reaches of the imagined passage. In 1728 Vitus Bering , a Danish-born Russian navy officer, used

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3200-540: The Arctic and Hudson Bay. In 1611, while in James Bay , Hudson's crew mutinied. They set Hudson and his teenage son John, along with seven sick, infirm, or loyal crewmen, adrift in a small open boat. He was never seen again. A mission was sent out in 1612, again in Discovery , commanded by Sir Thomas Button to find Henry Hudson and continue through the Northwest Passage. After failing to find Hudson, and exploring

3300-620: The Arctic in the airship Norge , designed by Nobile. They left Spitsbergen on 11 May 1926, flew over the North Pole on 12 May, and landed in Alaska the following day. The three previous claims to have arrived at the North Pole, by the Americans Frederick Cook in 1908; Robert Peary in 1909; and Richard E. Byrd in 1926 (just a few days before the Norge ) are disputed by some, as being either of dubious accuracy or outrightly fraudulent. If these other claims are false,

3400-458: The Arctic. The search for his remains, which have not been found, was called off that September. Amundsen was born into a family of Norwegian shipowners and captains in Borge , between the towns Fredrikstad and Sarpsborg . His parents were Jens Amundsen and Hanna Sahlqvist. Roald was the fourth son in the family. His mother wanted him to avoid the family maritime trade and encouraged him to become

3500-513: The Barrier, along a line directly south to the Pole. Amundsen also planned to kill most of his dogs on the way and use them as a source for fresh meat. As he went he butchered some of the dogs and fed them to the remaining dogs, as well as eating some himself. A small group, including Hjalmar Johansen , Kristian Prestrud and Jørgen Stubberud , set out on 8 September, but had to abandon their trek due to extreme temperatures. The painful retreat caused

3600-607: The British East India Company and the Muscovy Company, set out in 1606 to follow up on Weymouth's discoveries and find the Northwest Passage. After his ship ran aground and was nearly crushed by ice, Knight disappeared while searching for a better anchorage. In 1609, Henry Hudson sailed up what is now called the Hudson River in search of the Passage; encouraged by the saltiness of the water in

3700-842: The Canadian Arctic Archipelago, via the McClure Strait , Dease Strait , and the Prince of Wales Strait , but not all of them are suitable for larger ships. From there ships passed through westward through the Beaufort Sea and the Chukchi Sea , and then southwards through the Bering Strait (separating Russia and Alaska), into the Pacific Ocean. In the 21st century, major changes to the ice pack due to climate change have stirred speculation that

3800-480: The Canadian Arctic to chart the last unknown swaths of the Northwest Passage. Confidence was high, as they estimated there was less than 500 km (310 mi) remaining of unexplored Arctic mainland coast. When the ships failed to return, relief expeditions and search parties explored the Canadian Arctic, which resulted in a thorough charting of the region, along with a possible passage. Many artifacts from

3900-633: The East Coast to Cape Sherard (Cape Osborn) ( 74°35′N 80°30′W  /  74.583°N 80.500°W  / 74.583; -80.500 ) and across to Cape Liverpool, Bylot Island ( 73°44′N 77°50′W  /  73.733°N 77.833°W  / 73.733; -77.833 ); down the East coast of this island to Cape Graham Moore, its southeastern point, and thence across to Cape Macculloch ( 72°29′N 75°08′W  /  72.483°N 75.133°W  / 72.483; -75.133 ) and down

4000-737: The East coast of Baffin Island to East Bluff, its Southeastern extremity, and thence the Eastern limit of Hudson Strait . On the South. The mainland coast of Hudson Strait; the Northern limits of Hudson Bay ; the mainland coast from Beach Point to Cape Bathurst . As a result of their westward explorations and their settlement of Greenland, the Vikings sailed as far north and west as Ellesmere Island , Skraeling Island for hunting expeditions and trading with Inuit groups. The subsequent arrival of

4100-593: The Little Ice Age is thought to have been one of the reasons that European seafaring into the Northwest Passage ceased until the late 15th century. In 1539, Hernán Cortés commissioned Francisco de Ulloa to sail along the Baja California Peninsula on the western coast of North America. Ulloa concluded that the Gulf of California was the southernmost section of a strait supposedly linking

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4200-616: The Moon was named after him; the rim of the crater is being considered by NASA as a potential landing location for their Artemis III lunar lander. Built in 1929 and opened in 1930, Amundsen High School opened its doors in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood. The 1969 film The Red Tent tells the story of the Nobile expedition and Amundsen's disappearance. Sean Connery plays Amundsen. A book Scott and Amundsen , by Roland Huntford ,

4300-484: The N-24 and N-25, to 87° 44′ north. It was the northernmost latitude reached by plane up to that time. The aircraft landed a few miles apart without radio contact, yet the crews managed to reunite. The N-24 was damaged. Amundsen and his crew worked for more than three weeks to clean up an airstrip to take off from ice. They shovelled 600 tons of ice while consuming only one pound (450 g) of daily food rations. In

4400-404: The North Pole. Amundsen's French Latham 47 flying boat never returned . Later, a wing-float and bottom gasoline tank from the plane, which had been adapted as a replacement wing-float, were found near the Tromsø coast. It is assumed that the plane crashed in the Barents Sea , and that Amundsen and his crew were killed in the wreck, or died shortly afterward. The search for Amundsen and team

4500-557: The Northeast. The Coast of Ellesmere Island between C. Columbia and C. Sheridan the Northern limit of Baffin Bay . On the East. The East Coast of Ellesmere Island between C. Sheridan and Cape Norton Shaw ( 76°29′N 78°30′W  /  76.483°N 78.500°W  / 76.483; -78.500 ), thence across to Phillips Point ( Coburg Island ) through this Island to Marina Peninsula ( 75°55′N 79°10′W  /  75.917°N 79.167°W  / 75.917; -79.167 ) and across to Cape Fitz Roy ( Devon Island ) down

4600-439: The Northwest Passage "was a great achievement for Norway". He said he hoped to do more and signed it "Your loyal subject, Roald Amundsen". The crew returned to Oslo in November 1906, after almost three and a half years abroad. Gjøa was returned to Norway in 1972. After a 45-day trip from San Francisco on a bulk carrier, she was placed on land outside the Fram Museum in Oslo, where she is now situated inside her own building at

4700-443: The Northwest Passage (north of the Bering Strait) were explored separately by many expeditions, including those by John Ross , Elisha Kent Kane , William Edward Parry , and James Clark Ross ; overland expeditions were also led by John Franklin , George Back , Peter Warren Dease , Thomas Simpson , and John Rae . In 1826 Frederick William Beechey explored the north coast of Alaska, discovering Point Barrow. Sir Robert McClure

4800-481: The Northwest Passage and other Arctic routes are not always seen as promising shipping lanes by industry insiders, at least for the time being. The uncertainty related to physical damage to ships is also thought to translate into higher insurance premiums, especially because of the technical challenges posed by Arctic navigation (as of 2014, only 12 percent of Canada's Arctic waters have been charted to modern standards). The Beluga group of Bremen , Germany, sent

4900-462: The Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was the first to complete the passage solely by ship, from Greenland to Alaska in the sloop Gjøa . Since that date, several fortified ships have made the journey. From east to west, the direction of most early exploration attempts, expeditions entered the passage from the Atlantic Ocean via the Davis Strait and through Baffin Bay , both of which are in Canada. Five to seven routes have been taken through

5000-415: The Norwegian supporters felt misled. Scott was planning his own expedition to the South Pole that year. Using the ship Fram , earlier used by Fridtjof Nansen , Amundsen left Oslo for the south on 3 June 1910. At Madeira , Amundsen alerted his men that they would be heading to Antarctica, and sent a telegram to Scott: "Beg to inform you Fram proceeding Antarctic – Amundsen." Nearly six months later,

5100-422: The Pacific with the Gulf of Saint Lawrence . His voyage perpetuated the notion of the Island of California and saw the beginning of a search for the Strait of Anián. The strait probably took its name from Ania, a Chinese province mentioned in a 1559 edition of Marco Polo 's book; it first appears on a map issued by Italian cartographer Giacomo Gastaldi about 1562. Five years later Bolognino Zaltieri issued

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5200-497: The Southwest coast of Prince Patrick Island to Griffiths Point, thence a line to Cape Prince Alfred, the Northwestern extreme of Banks Island , through its West coast to Cape Kellet, the Southwestern point, and thence a line to Cape Bathurst on the mainland ( 70°36′N 127°32′W  /  70.600°N 127.533°W  / 70.600; -127.533 ). On the Northwest. The Arctic Ocean between Lands End, Prince Patrick Island, and Cape Columbia , Ellesmere Island . On

5300-399: The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said: "The passages are open. It's a historic event. We are going to see this more and more as the years go by." However, some thick sections of ice will remain hard to melt in the shorter term. Drifting and persistence of large chunks of ice, especially in springtime, can be problematic as they can clog entire straits or severely damage

5400-404: The carefully collected scientific data was lost during the ill-fated journey of Peter Tessem and Paul Knutsen , two crew members sent on a mission by Amundsen. The scientific materials were later retrieved in 1922 by Russian scientist Nikolay Urvantsev from where they had been abandoned on the shores of the Kara Sea . The 1923 attempt to fly over the Pole failed. Amundsen and Oskar Omdal , of

5500-461: The command of Wisting, was to resume the original plan to drift over the North Pole in the ice. The ship drifted in the ice for three years east of the New Siberian Islands, never reaching the North Pole. It was finally seized by Amundsen's creditors as collateral for his mounting debt. Although they were unable to reach the North Pole, the scientific results of the expedition, mainly the work of Sverdrup, have proven to be of considerable value. Much of

5600-487: The continent and to Hobart , Australia, where Amundsen publicly announced his success on 7 March 1912. He telegraphed news to backers. Amundsen's expedition benefited from his careful preparation, good equipment, appropriate clothing, a simple primary task, an understanding of dogs and their handling, and the effective use of skis. In contrast to the misfortunes of Scott's team, Amundsen's trek proved relatively smooth and uneventful. In 1918, an expedition Amundsen began with

5700-497: The crew got the ship loose from the ice, but it froze again after eleven days somewhere between the New Siberian Islands and Wrangel Island . During this time, Amundsen suffered a broken arm and was attacked by a polar bear. As a result, he participated little in the work outdoors, such as sleigh rides and hunting. He, Hanssen, and Wisting, along with two other men, embarked on an expedition by dog sled to Nome, Alaska, more than 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) away. But they found that

5800-440: The crew may have survived into the early 1850s, no evidence has ever been found of any survivors. In 1853, explorer John Rae was told by local Inuit about the disastrous fate of Franklin's expedition, but his reports were not welcomed in Britain on account of his reports of cannibalism amongst the surviving crews. Starvation , exposure and scurvy all contributed to the men's deaths. In 1981 Owen Beattie , an anthropologist from

5900-623: The crew of the Norge would be the first explorers verified to have reached the North Pole, when they floated over it in the Norge in 1926. If the Norge expedition was the first to the North Pole, Amundsen and Oscar Wisting were the first men to have reached both geographical poles, by ground or by air. Amundsen disappeared on 18 June 1928 while flying on a rescue mission in the Arctic. His team included Norwegian pilot Leif Dietrichson , French pilot René Guilbaud , and three more Frenchmen. They were seeking missing members of Nobile's crew, whose new airship Italia had crashed while returning from

6000-455: The crew. During the third winter, Maud was frozen in the western Bering Strait. She finally became free and the expedition sailed south, reaching Seattle , in the American Pacific Northwest in 1921 for repairs. Amundsen returned to Norway, needing to put his finances in order. He took with him two young indigenous girls, a four-year-old he adopted, Kakonita, and her companion Camilla. When Amundsen went bankrupt two years later, however, he sent

6100-405: The difficult extinction of a fire on board the ship, he sailed to Greenland , where he traded goods with the Inuit peoples on July 8, 1746. He crossed to the town of Fort Nelson and spent the summer on the Hayes River . He renewed his efforts in June 1747, without success, before returning to England. In 1772, the English fur trader Samuel Hearne travelled overland northwest from Hudson Bay to

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6200-496: The edge of the Polar Plateau on 21 November after a four-day climb. The team and 16 dogs arrived at the pole on 14 December, a month before Scott's group. Amundsen named their South Pole camp Polheim . Amundsen renamed the Antarctic Plateau as King Haakon VII's Plateau. They left a small tent and letter stating their accomplishment, in case they did not return safely to Framheim. The team arrived at Framheim on 25 January 1912, with 11 surviving dogs. They made their way off

6300-420: The end, the six crew members were packed into the N-25. In a remarkable feat, Riiser-Larsen took off, and they barely became airborne over the cracking ice. They returned triumphant when everyone thought they had been lost forever. In 1926, Amundsen and 15 other men (including Ellsworth, Riiser-Larsen, Oscar Wisting, and the Italian air crew led by aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile ) made the first crossing of

6400-403: The estuary, he reached present-day Albany, New York , before giving up. On September 14, 1609, Hudson entered the Tappan Zee while sailing upstream from New York Harbor . At first, Hudson believed the widening of the river indicated that he had found the Northwest Passage. He proceeded upstream as far as present-day Troy before concluding that no such strait existed there. He later explored

6500-491: The expedition arrived at the eastern edge of the Ross Ice Shelf (then known as "the Great Ice Barrier"), at a large inlet called the Bay of Whales , on 14 January 1911. Amundsen established his base camp there, calling it Framheim . Amundsen eschewed the heavy wool clothing worn on earlier Antarctic attempts in favour of adopting Inuit -style furred skins. Using skis and dog sleds for transportation, Amundsen and his men created supply depots at 80°, 81° and 82° South on

6600-469: The expedition told of their relations with Inuit women, and historians have speculated that Amundsen might also have taken a partner, although he wrote a warning against this. Specifically, half-brothers Bob Konona and Paul Ikuallaq say that their father Luke Ikuallaq told them on his deathbed that he was the son of Amundsen. Konona said that their father Ikuallaq was left out on the ice to die after his birth, as his European ancestry made him illegitimate to

6700-440: The expedition was to explore the unknown areas of the Arctic Ocean, strongly inspired by Fridtjof Nansen's earlier expedition with Fram . The plan was to sail along the coast of Siberia and go into the ice farther to the north and east than Nansen had. In contrast to Amundsen's earlier expeditions, this was expected to yield more material for academic research, and he carried the geophysicist Harald Sverdrup on board. The voyage

6800-437: The expedition were found over the next century and a half, including notes that the ships were ice-locked in 1846 near King William Island , about halfway through the passage, and unable to break free. Records showed Franklin died in 1847 and Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier took over command. In 1848 the expedition abandoned the two ships and its members tried to escape south across the tundra by sledge . Although some of

6900-513: The expedition, including William Bligh , George Vancouver , and John Gore , thought the existence of a route was 'improbable'. Before reaching 65°N they found the coastline pushing them further south, but Gore convinced Cook to sail on into the Cook Inlet in the hope of finding the route. They continued to the limits of the Alaskan peninsula and the start of the 1,200 mi (1,900 km) chain of Aleutian Islands. Despite reaching 70°N , they encountered nothing but icebergs. From 1792 to 1794,

7000-407: The first Western commercial vessels through the Northern Sea Route (Northeast Passage) in 2009. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that "ships entering the North-West passage should first report to his government". The first commercial cargo ship to have sailed through the Northwest Passage was SS  Manhattan in August 1969. SS Manhattan , of 115,000 deadweight tonnage ,

7100-442: The first expedition to traverse Canada's Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He planned a small expedition of six men in a 45-ton fishing vessel, Gjøa , to have flexibility. His ship had relatively shallow draft. His technique was to use a small ship and hug the coast. Amundsen had the ship outfitted with a small 13 horsepower single-screw paraffin (diesel) engine. They traveled via Baffin Bay ,

7200-680: The flag of the Spanish crown, claimed he had sailed the strait from the Pacific to the North Sea and back in 1592. The Spaniard Bartholomew de Fonte claimed to have sailed from Hudson Bay to the Pacific via the strait in 1640. The first recorded attempt to discover the Northwest Passage was the east–west voyage of John Cabot in 1497, sent by Henry VII in search of a direct route to the Orient . In 1524, Charles V sent Estêvão Gomes to find

7300-426: The girls to be cared for by Camilla's father, who lived in eastern Russia. In June 1922, Amundsen returned to Maud , which had been sailed to Nome. He decided to shift from the planned naval expedition to aerial ones, and arranged to charter a plane. He divided the expedition team in two: one part, led by him, was to winter over and prepare for an attempt to fly over the pole in 1923. The second team on Maud , under

7400-629: The head of a Canadian mining company claims, parts of the eastern end of the Passage are barely 15 metres (49 ft) deep, the route's viability as a Euro-Asian shipping route is reduced. In 2016, Chinese shipping line COSCO expressed a desire to make regular voyages of cargo ships using the passage to the Eastern United States and Europe, after a successful passage by Nordic Orion of 73,500 tonnes deadweight tonnage in September 2013. Fully laden, Nordic Orion sat too deep in

7500-482: The hypothesis.) Explorers thought that an Open Polar Sea close to the North Pole must exist. The belief that a route lay to the far north persisted for several centuries and led to numerous expeditions into the Arctic. Many ended in disaster, including that by Sir John Franklin in 1845. While searching for him the McClure Arctic Expedition discovered the Northwest Passage in 1850. In 1906,

7600-486: The ice was not frozen solid in the Bering Strait , and it could not be crossed. They sent a telegram from Anadyr to signal their location. After two winters frozen in the ice, without having achieved the goal of drifting over the North Pole, Amundsen decided to go to Nome to repair the ship and buy provisions. Several of the crew ashore there, including Hanssen, did not return on time to the ship. Amundsen considered Hanssen to be in breach of contract, and dismissed him from

7700-645: The mid-19th century. In 1602, George Weymouth became the first European to explore what would later be called Hudson Strait when he sailed Discovery 300 nautical miles (560 km) into the Strait. Weymouth's expedition to find the Northwest Passage was funded jointly by the British East India Company and the Muscovy Company . Discovery was the same ship used by Henry Hudson on his final voyage. John Knight , employed by

7800-538: The museum. Amundsen next planned to take an expedition to the North Pole and explore the Arctic Basin . Finding it difficult to raise funds, when he heard in 1909 that the Americans Frederick Cook and Robert Peary had claimed to reach the North Pole as a result of two different expeditions, he decided to reroute to Antarctica. He was not clear about his intentions, and Robert F. Scott and

7900-427: The need to sail around ice near Point Barrow . East of Point Barrow the coast is fairly clear in summer. This area was mapped in pieces from overland in 1821–1839. This leaves the large rectangle north of the coast, south of Parry Channel and west of Baffin Island. This area was mostly mapped in 1848–1854 by ships looking for Franklin's lost expedition. The first crossing was made by Roald Amundsen in 1903–1906. He used

8000-499: The passage may become clear enough of ice to permit safe commercial shipping for at least part of the year. On August 21, 2007, the Northwest Passage became open to ships without the need of an icebreaker . According to Nalan Koc of the Norwegian Polar Institute , this was the first time the Passage has been clear since they began keeping records in 1972. The Northwest Passage opened again on August 25, 2008. It

8100-514: The passage. Initially the Admiralty had wanted Charles Clerke to lead the expedition, with Cook (in retirement following his exploits in the Pacific) acting as a consultant. However, Cook had researched Bering's expeditions, and the Admiralty ultimately placed their faith in the veteran explorer to lead, with Clerke accompanying him. After journeying through the Pacific, to make an attempt from

8200-629: The return trip of her maiden voyage. In the spring of 1682, La Salle made his famous voyage down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico . La Salle led an expedition from France in 1684 to establish a French colony on the Gulf of Mexico. He was murdered by his followers in 1687. Henry Ellis , born in Ireland, was part of a company aiming to discover the Northwest Passage in May 1746. After

8300-484: The strait first discovered by Semyon Dezhnyov in 1648 but later accredited to and named after Bering (the Bering Strait ). He concluded that North America and Russia were separate land masses by sailing between them. In 1741 with Lieutenant Aleksei Chirikov , he explored seeking further lands beyond Siberia . While they were separated, Chirikov discovered several of the Aleutian Islands while Bering charted

8400-569: The transport of goods and to wear animal skins in lieu of heavy, woolen parkas, which could not keep out the cold when wet. Leaving Gjoa Haven, he sailed west and passed Cambridge Bay , which had been reached from the west by Richard Collinson in 1852. Continuing to the south of Victoria Island , the ship cleared the Canadian Arctic Archipelago on 17 August 1905 . It had to stop for the winter before going on to Nome on Alaska's Pacific coast. The nearest telegraph station

8500-577: The water to sail through the Panama Canal . The Northwest Passage has three sections: Many attempts were made to find a salt water exit west from Hudson Bay, but the Fury and Hecla Strait in the far north is blocked by ice. The eastern entrance and main axis of the northwest passage, the Parry Channel, was found in 1819. The approach from the west through Bering Strait is impractical because of

8600-460: The waterways more navigable for ice navigation . The contested sovereignty claims over the waters may complicate future shipping through the region: the Canadian government maintains that the Northwestern Passages are part of Canadian Internal Waters , but the United States claims that they are an international strait and transit passage, allowing free and unencumbered passage. If, as

8700-423: The west coast of Hudson Bay, Button returned home due to illness in the crew. In 1614, William Gibbons attempted to find the Passage, but was turned back by ice. The next year, 1615, Robert Bylot , a survivor of Hudson's crew, returned to Hudson Strait in Discovery , but was turned back by ice. Bylot tried again in 1616 with William Baffin . They sailed as far as Lancaster Sound and reached 77°45′ North latitude,

8800-519: The west, Cook began at Nootka Sound in April 1778. He headed north along the coastline, charting the lands and searching for the regions sailed by the Russians 40 years previously. The Admiralty's orders had commanded the expedition to ignore all inlets and rivers until they reached a latitude of 65°N . Cook, however, failed to make any progress in sighting a Northwestern Passage. Various officers on

8900-534: Was 500 mi (800 km) away in Eagle . Amundsen traveled there overland to wire a success message on 5 December, then returned to Nome in 1906. Later that year he was elected to the American Antiquarian Society . Amundsen learned of the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden , and that he had a new king. The explorer sent the new king, Haakon VII , news that his traversing

9000-513: Was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions . He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration . Born in Borge, Østfold , Norway, Amundsen began his career as a polar explorer as first mate on Adrien de Gerlache 's Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–1899. From 1903 to 1906, he led the first expedition to successfully traverse the Northwest Passage on the sloop Gjøa . In 1909, Amundsen began planning for

9100-584: Was a backer of Frobisher, claimed the territory of Newfoundland for the English crown. On August 8, 1585, the English explorer John Davis entered Cumberland Sound , Baffin Island. The major rivers on the east coast were also explored in case they could lead to a transcontinental passage. Jacques Cartier 's explorations of the Saint Lawrence River in 1535 were initiated in hope of finding

9200-563: Was adapted into the TV serial The Last Place on Earth . It aired in 1985 and features Sverre Anker Ousdal as Amundsen. On 15 February 2019, a biographic Norwegian film titled Amundsen , directed by Espen Sandberg , was released. At least two Inuit in Gjøa Haven with European ancestry have claimed to be descendants of Amundsen, from the period of their extended winter stay on King William Island from 1903 to 1905. Accounts by members of

9300-527: Was called off in September 1928 by the Norwegian government, and the bodies were never found. In 2004 and in late August 2009, the Royal Norwegian Navy used the unmanned submarine Hugin 1000 to search for the wreckage of Amundsen's plane. The searches focused on a 40-square-mile (100 km ) area of the sea floor, and were documented by the German production company ContextTV. They found nothing from

9400-435: Was credited with the discovery of the Northwest Passage in 1851 when he looked across McClure Strait from Banks Island and viewed Melville Island . However, this strait was not navigable to ships at that time. The only usable route linking the entrances of Lancaster Sound and Dolphin and Union Strait was discovered by John Rae in 1854. In 1845, a lavishly equipped two-ship expedition led by Sir John Franklin sailed to

9500-511: Was discovered in 1850 by the Irish explorer Robert McClure whose expedition completed the passage by hauling sledges. Scotsman John Rae explored a more southerly area in 1854 through which Norwegian Roald Amundsen made the first complete passage entirely by ship in 1903–1906. Until 2009, the Arctic pack ice prevented regular marine shipping throughout most of the year. Arctic sea ice decline , linked primarily to climate change , has rendered

9600-459: Was no route through the heart of the continent, attention turned to the possibility of a passage through northern waters. There was a lack of scientific knowledge about conditions; for instance, some people believed that seawater was incapable of freezing. (As late as the mid-18th century, Captain James Cook had reported that Antarctic icebergs had yielded fresh water, seemingly confirming

9700-595: Was said to have ignored romantic relationships in pursuit of his goals. He "found little use in activities that didn't help him fulfill his polar ambitions". Owing to Amundsen's numerous significant accomplishments in polar exploration, many places in both the Arctic and Antarctic are named after him. The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station , operated by the United States Antarctic Program , was jointly named in honour of Amundsen and his British rival Robert Falcon Scott . The Amundsen crater on

9800-401: Was the largest commercial vessel ever to navigate the Northwest Passage. The largest passenger ship to navigate the Northwest Passage was the cruise liner Crystal Serenity of gross tonnage 69,000. Starting on August 10, 2016, the ship sailed from Vancouver to New York City with 1,500 passengers and crew, taking 28 days. In 2018, two of the freighters leaving Baffinland 's port in

9900-623: Was to the northeasterly direction over the Kara Sea . Amundsen planned to freeze the Maud into the polar ice cap and drift towards the North Pole ;– as Nansen had done with the Fram  – and he did so off Cape Chelyuskin . But, the ice became so thick that the ship was unable to break free, although it was designed for such a journey in heavy ice. In September 1919,

10000-462: Was translated and published in London , stimulating exploration. Captain James Cook made use of the journal during his explorations of the region. In 1791 Alessandro Malaspina sailed to Yakutat Bay , Alaska, which was rumoured to be a Passage. In 1790 and 1791 Francisco de Eliza led several exploring voyages into the Strait of Juan de Fuca , searching for a possible Northwest Passage and finding

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