5. Northeast Pass: the Most Wanted Route

No other motive has boosted history of maritime exploration as much as the search of new routes which facilitate commerce between Europe and Asia. On his effort, Christopher Columbus discovered a new world, which made of the Spanish Crown the biggest empire of contemporary ages. For almost two centuries, traders of other European countries looked how the passes to Asia, through southern Africa and Southern America were blocked by Spanish and Portuguese ships – it was very clear that the situation could not go on like that.
Throughout the years the political situation changed; the Spanish empire started its decline, while others took the place or, depending on how we look it, they just distributed the rests. What never changed was the geographical fact that the American continent had continuity from north to south, and that merchant routes to the East meant a high risk investment: months on board, pirates, storms, shallows, cliffs, and navigation and orientation incidents, besides the need of crossing the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn – there were many possibilities that ships never made its way to safe port. To no port, in fact.

Looking for the Ghost Straight

Another pass form the Atlantic to the Pacific had to be found. And, by elimination, sailors looked north. As early as the 16^th century some sailors left Europe with NW fixed direction, based on the Abraham Ortelius’ writings that indicated the existence of a northern pass between both oceans through what he called Straight of Anian. But instead of finding shortcuts to China, first explorers found a devastating cold, wind against and dark waters full of icebergs, that they left behind – and only those who could manage to survive. One of them was the Dutchman Willem Barents who, on his search, made explorations and remain in history as the official discoverer of Svalbard Islands.
Next milestone was marked by English Henry Hudson, who along several trips started the search of the legendary pass sponsored by English and Dutch merchant companies. On his search he found an entrance to the continent through a huge river which he went upriver for 240 km, and named after himself. In the mouth of the river a small village was built and first known as New Amsterdam, and later on it will change its name for New York.
Sailor’s daring was found interesting by a group of English traders known as “The Adventurers”, who hired him to find, eventually, a route to the East. This way he crossed a straight which he named after him as well between the southern extreme of the continent and the islands that now is Canada. He did not get to find the pass, but he did explore a huge bay (called, of course, Hudson’s Bay) and went on until his ship was trapped by ice, turning the crew in the first foreigners that put up with an arctic winter. Their reports about tides would give clues to future travelers about the possible location of the route.
But, for Hudson’s misfortune, he never had the chance to give the documents personally. His crew mutinied and decided to leave him at his own risk, behind his son and a group of loyal men, on a boat. Nobody knew from them anymore. The rest of the crew managed to go back to England, although decimated by cold and scurvy. The survivors were never judged and nobody planned to go back North in search of Hudson and the rest. It was clear, for the time being, that finding the Northeast Pass may be possible but not really profitable, so governments and traders lost interest.
The explorers’ dreams were overtaken to the engineers’ calculations, which started to lucubrate with theories about the possibility of dividing continents by force. In the course of time they will become real in the Suez (inaugurated in 1896) and Panama (opened in 1914) Canals.

Tragedy and Victory: from Franklin to Amundsen

Nevertheless, The British retook the project during Victorian time. For the empire and for the queen, several expeditions got back to the arctic willing to find the glory – or and heroic dead. Sir John Franklin departed in 1845 with two ships; both of them got trapped in the ice and none of the 138 crew members survived. Not even the 20.000 pounds reward for finding Sir John offered by the Military Authorities was of any use.
Or it was: although the remains of the fallen fellow countrymen were never found, those who parted on their rescue widely explored the region and one of them, Edward A. Inglefield opened the route to the North Pole. Nevertheless, the story of Franklin’s expedition (which sad end was finally known by some documents found in Point Victory) inspired, instead of scaring, a Norwegian sailor: Roald Amundsen. With a sailboat, “the Gjoa”, started a three year trip from North Atlantic through North Canada, and ended in 1906 in the coast of Alaska, in the Pacific Ocean. He had achieved finding the legendary pass, and charting the area as well, naming islands, straights and bays, and learning from the skimos who he lived together.
Amundsen’s arctic ordeal is impressive enough to make him a first place in the history of explorations. Nevertheless, the fame of his gest would be almost forgotten with his next expedition, which was carried out five years later on the other extreme of the planet. It was the one who made Amundsen and his group to become the first human beings who stepped on the South Pole.

The future of the Pass

Another possible reason to “forget” Amundsen’s trip through the North Sea is that, even nowadays, the Northeast Pass is still unviable in practical terms as maritime route. There is too much ice; the straights among the islands remain frozen most part of the year… by the moment. Finally, it won’t be the Norwegian’s daring what will make of the Northeast Pass an alternative route to Suez and Panama Canals – but global warming. Experts estimate that the Pass could be navigable by 2020. By then, for sure that this huge maze of land, sea and ice will be on the covers of the newspapers very frequently. And it won’t be to honor the pioneers, or to praise the landscapes – but, once again, to talk about money and power.
Canada and Russia are already discussing to whom these waters belong, those that nobody cared about when they were covered by ice, and which, very soon, can reduce the route between London and Osaka in more than 6.000 km. It will be interesting as well to see how, when and who exploits the deposits of oils, gas, lead and diamonds located in the region.
In any case, Hilo Moreno and José Mijares look forward to following Amundsen’s track before this happens specially because the Spaniards look forward to crossing the Northeast Pass walking, skiing over the fragile ice and not on a boat.

Human dimension of the trip

After the almost invariable landscape of the interior plain of Greenland, covered in previous stages of the project, the North of Canada offers an incredible environment of varied and wild nature. José and Hilo will go across territories of extreme beauty, which have not changed practically in the last years from the pioneering expeditions… Or have they? That is the question.
In this occasion, the expedition members look forward to giving a new dimension to the trip, so they can take advantage not only of the sport challenge but of the environmental and anthropological richness of the region. José and Hilo want to visit the inuit villages that they will find on his way. Although they are not igloo building nomads anymore, they live in wooden houses, and besides their sledge’s dogs they park their snow bikes, they still keep their language, traditions, environmental knowledge and points of view. Speaking with skimos, sharing their house, their food and their stories, they look forward to learning directly how these people lives have evolved during the last century, how their daily existence are in a very hard environment and, over all, how they foresee their own future – that there is no doubt that will change radically if the Northeast Pass finally turns into a navigable route.
The contact among the skimo villages and the first explorers was neither productive nor positive for the first of them: frequently natives were attacked or even kidnapped and taken to Europe as freaks, to let them die a short time after for simple colds which they did not have defenses against. Only a few foreigners took care of learning from their customs, their adaptation to Polar Regions and their knowledge of the Arctic. Now, it will be interesting to check how much things have changed and where this changes are leading towards.