Northeast Passage, water route along the northern coast of Europe and Asia, between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Beginning in the 15th cent., efforts were made to find a new all-water route to India and China. Most of these attempts were directed at seeking a Northwest Passage Northwest Passage, water routes through the Arctic Archipelago, N Canada, and along the northern coast of Alaska between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Even though the explorers of the 16th cent.
..... Click the link for more information. . However, English, Dutch, and Russian navigators did try to seek a northeast route by sailing along the northern coast of Russia and far into the arctic seas. In the 1550s, English ships made the first attempt to find the passage. Willem Barentz, the Dutch navigator, made several futile voyages in the 1590s, as did Henry Hudson in the early 17th cent. The decline of Dutch shipping in the 1700s left the exploration mainly to the Russians; among the men sent out was Vitus Bering, who explored the eastern part of the passage. The Russian Great Northern Expedition (1733–43) explored most of the coast of N Siberia. The Northeast Passage was not, however, traversed by anyone until Nils A. E. Nordenskjöld of Sweden accomplished the feat in 1878–79. In the early 1900s, icebreakers sailed through the passage, and in the 1930s the Northern Sea Route, a shipping lane, was established by the USSR. Since World War II the Soviet Union and now Russia has maintained a regular highway for shipping along this passage through the development of new ports and the exploitation of resources in the interior. A fleet of Russian icebreakers, aided by aerial reconnaissance and by radio weather stations, keeps the route navigable from June to October. The Northern Sea Route cuts the distance between Russian Atlantic and Pacific ports in half.

Northeast Passage

Maritime route along the northern coast of Europe and Asia. It lies between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans mainly off northern Siberia. Early explorers included Willem Barents, Olivier Brunel, and Henry Hudson. In 1778 Capt. James Cook saw both sides of the Bering Strait and demonstrated that Asia and North America are two separate continents. The passage was first traversed by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld in 1878–79. Since the late 1960s it has been kept open in summer by icebreakers.