Northwest Passage

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This article is about the geographical Northwest Passage; for the film see Northwest Passage (film)

1849 depiction of the search for the Passage

The Northwest Passage is a much-sought water route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Between the 16th century and the 19th century, European explorers, particularly the British, made numerous attempts to discover such a route north and west, through (by river) or around (by sea) North America: Captain John Smith, for example, sailed up the Chesapeake Bay from Jamestown in the early 1600s looking for a river that led to the Passage, but in the early 1800s Lewis and Clark proved there was no navigable water route through the continent of North America, so the theory was shifted northward, to be an all-sea route through the Arctic Archipelago around the north of Canada. The earliest of the explorations were based on a mixture of legend, conjecture, and wishful thinking, but later expeditions built on what was learned and gradually extended their maps, at first of North America itself and then of Arctic America in particular. The largest number of expeditions in search of the passage was launched by Great Britain in the mid-nineteenth century, begining in 1818 and continuing through the ill-fated expedition of Sir John Franklin in 1845, from which not a single man returned alive. The notion of an Open Polar Sea, though eventually proved chimerical as well, had a long-lasting influence on the search for the Passage and was still believed in by some navigators and geographers as late as the 1890's. Even after the claim of an Open Sea was disproved, the Passage retained its romantic allure, and when in 1905 the Norwegian explorer Roald Amudsen completed the first successful voyage through the Passage, the news electrified the world.

History

Earliest Attempts

The earliest attempts to find a Northwest Passage were motivated not by the quest for exploration but by the thirst for gold. The Spanish legend of the Estrecho de Anián (= Strait of Anián) dated back to the late Middle Ages and was already venerable in 1539 when Hernán Cortés sent Francisco de Ulloa to sail up the inland side of Baja California in search of it. It was not, however, the Spanish who were to be most persisent in this quest, but the British, whose sense of entitlement to the more "septentrional" (northerly) regions of the "New World" was first set forth by Dionyse Settle, the official propagandist for Sir Martin Frobisher's series of expeditions to the Arctic in the later 1570's.:

"Svch countries and people, (good Christian Reader) which almost from the deluge, or at the least, so long as anye human creature hath had habitation on the earth, haue of late yeres, by the industrie of diligent searchers ben explored: it hath likewise pleased God, that they should be found out by those people, which for the temperature of their habitation, are most apt to atchiue the fame. As for example the Spaniards, the West Indies. Spaine is situated much more neere the Tropike of Cancer, then other Christian countries be: whereby, the Spaniards being better able to tolerate Phoebus burning beames, then others whiche are more Septentrional then they. Wherefore, I suppose them the most apte men for the inioying of the habitation of the West Indies: and especially so much, as is vexed with continual heate, or that is agreeable to their temperature, God hath bene pleased that they, as the most apt people, should both explore & inioy the same . . . [so] it hath plesed God, at this present, by the great diligence & care of our worthie countrieman, Master Martine Frobisher, in the 18. and 19. yeare of oure Queenes Maiesties reigne, to discouer, for the vtilitie of his Prince and Countrie, other regions more Septentrional, then those before rehearsed: which, from the beginning, as vnknowne till nowe, haue bene concealed and hidden. Which discouerie, I iudge most apt for vs English men, and more agreeing to our temperature, then others aboue rehearsed."

Frobisher's three voyages, the last of which in 1578 involved a whole flotilla of ships with the intent to colonize Baffin Island, were premised on the supposed gold content of black stones he found there; when the optimistic assays were proved false -- the stones were, after all, just stones -- Elizabethan explorers abandoned the plan, but the dream of a Northwest Passage became a long-held and much-tried dream of English sailors from Hudson to Sir John Franklin.

Voyages of Delusion

The Eighteenth century, though in many regards an Age of Enlightenment, proved an era of what historian Glyn Williams has aptly dubbed "voyages of delusion."

The Barrow Era

Sir John Barrow (1864-1848), longtime Second Secretary to the British Admiralty, was in an ideal position to foster his long-sought dream of achieving the Northwest Passage. In the wake of Britain's victory in the Napoleonic War, he had surplus ships and men aplenty, and the national stage vacated by war seemed an ideal platform for new triumphs in the field of exploration. He began his efforts with two expeditions, both launched in 1818 -- one to seek the Northwest Passage via Baffin Bay, and another to push for the Pole by sailing north from the Spitsbergen Islands. The first, under the command of John Ross, led to to the re-mapping of Baffin Bay, and the discovery of the Polar Eskimo at Etah in Greenland, the northernmost human settlement on Earth. Nevertheless, after Ross turned back only a short distance west into Lancaster Sound, comvined the way was blocked by mountains, Barrow considered the entire voyage a failure. The second expedition, under the command of David Buchan and John Franklin, made far less progress, its ships battered by the ice-pack and forced to retreat after just barely matching the old record of 80 degrees north, but Barrow admired their spirit and recommended Franklin for a further command.

Barrow wasted no time in sending Ross's second-in-command, William Edward Parry to go where Ross had hesitated to go, and in 1819-1820 Parry enjoyed unprecedented success, passing hundreds of miles into what he dubbed "Barrow's Strait" and reaching the western extremity of Melville Island, where he spent the winter with his ships frozen in the ice, returning the next summer to claim the Parliamentary prize. Parry at once set about planning a return, but neither of his two later attempts on the Passage approached the success of the first. He then turned his attentions to the North Pole, managing to set a new northerly record of 82° 45’ N. lat. before being forced to turn back when the southerly drift of the ice erased nearly all of his northerly progress.

After this last expedition, Parry went into semi-retirement, and the British Admiralty seemed to lose interest in the Passage. This left an opening for Sir John Ross, eager to erase his past embarassment; in 1829, along with his nephew James Clark Ross he led a private expedition for the Passage funded by the London gin magnate Sir Felix Booth. The two Rosses discovered a new waterway, but it proved to be a dead end; the Rosses dubbed it the "Gulph of Boothia", and the new land to its west "Boothia" (now known as the Boothia Peninsula. Their ship the Victory trapped in the ice, they were almost certainly have perished but for the aid of the Netsilingmiut Inuit, whose village of snow huts appeared overnight on the horizon. The Inuit brought food, and assisted the Rosses with sledge expeditions, on one of which James Ross discovered the location of the North Magnetic Pole, and eventually reached his furthest west at a place he called "Victory Point". Though given up for dead by their countrymen, with the help of the Inuit and by making use of some abandoned supplies left behind by Parry, they made their way back to Barrow Strait, by then in use by commercial whalers, where they were rescued by the crew of the Isabella -- Sir John Ross's old ship. Ross returned home a conquering hero, but his assurances, given to a Parliamentary committee, that further attempts on the Passage would be "absolutely useless" put a damper on this long-sought dream.

The Franklin Expedition and Search

The quest for the Passage languished after Ross's voyage, much to the consternation of Barrow, who never forgave Ross his success. It was not, however, until late in 1844 that Barrow again found the backing to mount yet another attempt; James Ross was offered command, but declined, and all the other senior Arctic officers demurred in favor of Sir John Franklin, then back in England after an unhappy experience as the Governor-General of Tasmania. Franklin, though old (59), pronounced himself fit for the undertaking, and the Admiralty outfitted HMSS "Terror" and "Erebus" for the voyage. The ships were provisioned for three years to allow for multiple winterings, and the enormous quantity of food was stored in their holds along with coal for steam engines driving screw-propellors as backup power. The ships sailed from Greenhithe in May of 1845, and were last seen by a whaling captain in the Davis Straits in July; from that day forth, they were never seen alive by white men again.

The Admiralty, having assured the public that "the name of Franklin is a national guarantee of success", refused to mount a search expedition even after two winters without news. In 1849, they dispatched James Clark Ross with two ships, the Enterprise and Investigator; Ross made it only partway into the Barrow Straits, and his sledge parties found no trace of Franklin's ships or men. In 1850, further expeditions sailed, private and public, from both Great Britain and the United States. These discovered the site of Franklin's first winter harbor on Beechey Island, marked by the remains of an anvil, an observatory, and the three desolate graves of the expedition's first casualties.

Additional searches, including one by a flotilla of ships under the command of the unfortunate (and unfortunately-named) Admiral Belcher in 1853-54, found no further traces. Belcher, panicked when most of his ships were trapped in the ice, ordered a mass abandonment and return on the remaining vessels; his reward was a court martial. One of his ships,HMS Resolute managed to slip its ice-moorings on its own, and drifted crewless as far as the southern end of the Davis Straits. Found and piloted back to harbor by an American whaling captain, the Resolute was restored to perfect working order and presented to Queen Victoria as a gift. The Queen was so touched by this gesture that, years later when the Resolute was scrapped, she had a desk made from its timbers and presented to U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes; every president since, except Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Ford, has used this desk in the Oval Office.

With the advent of the Crimean War, the British government abandoned all search efforts, and declared that Franklin and his men had died in the line of duty.

Amundsen

That a Norwegian explorer should snatch the laurels of the Passage after a century of effort by by Britain shocked many in London, the more so since Roald Amundsen found success by rejecting almost all of the "noble" British traditions. The British send enormous ships' Amundsen took a tiny trawler; the British scorned Inuit diet and clothing; Amundsen adapted them; the British relied on men to haul supplies; Amundsen learned to use dogs.

Chronology of the Search for the Passage

Bibliography

  • Voyages of Delusion: The Quest for the Northwest Passage, by Glyn Williams, Yale University Press, 2002 (ISBN 0300098669)
  • Arctic Journeys: A History of Exploration for the Northwest Passage (American University Studies Series IX, History), by Miller Graff [ISBN 0820417459 (1992 hdbk)]
  • Across the Top of the World: The Quest for the Northwest Passage, by James Delgado, Checkmark Books 1999 (ISBN 0816041245)
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