The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Northwest Passage

a sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the bays, seas, and straits of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

The search for the Northwest Passage as the shortest route from Western Europe to East Asia was first undertaken between 1497 and 1542 by English, Portuguese, and French expeditions, which discovered and explored the eastern coast of North America. Between 1576 and 1631, English arctic expeditions discovered Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, Hudson Strait, Hudson Bay, and Foxe Basin. Difficult ice conditions long delayed further penetration of the north and northwest. In the period 1819–20, W. Parry discovered Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, and Viscount Melville Sound, all located at 74° N lat., and in the period 1821–24, he discovered Fury and Hecla Strait and Prince Regent Inlet. In 1821 the possibility of navigation in Coronation Gulf was demonstrated by J. Franklin, and in 1826, Franklin and J. Richardson proved the possibility of navigation in the southern and southeastern parts of the Beaufort Sea; in the course of these expeditions, Amundsen Gulf and Dolphin and Union Strait were discovered. In the period 1837–39, P. Dease and T. Simpson, sailing east of Coronation Gulf in small boats, discovered Dease Strait, Queen Maud Gulf, and Simpson Strait. In the period 1845–46, J. Franklin’s expedition on two ships passed from Barrow Strait through Peel Sound and Franklin Strait to King William Island. In the period 1850–52, traveling eastward from Bering Strait, R. M’Clure discovered Prince of Wales Strait and M’Clure Strait, thereby proving the existence of the Northwest Passage. In 1852, W. Kennedy discovered Bellot Strait.

R. Amundsen, on the ship Gjöa, made the first east to west crossing of the Northwest Passage in the period 1903–06, stopping to winter three times. The first west to east crossing was made by H. Larsen on the St. Roch in the period 1940–42; he and his party stopped to winter twice. In 1944, Larsen, on the same ship, traveled from east to west in a single season.

REFERENCES

Arkticheskiepokhody Dzhona Franklina. Leningrad, 1937.
Magidovich, I. P. Istoriia otkrytiia i issledovaniia Severnoi Ameriki. Moscow, 1962.
Dodge, E. S. Northwest by Sea. New York, 1961.

I. P. MAGIDOVICH

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References in periodicals archive

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Sir John Franklin, a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer, led 129 men and the two ships that departed England in 1845 to search for the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean but disappeared a year later in 1846.

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