North-West Passage

The Northwest Passage is one of the longest, most challenging and in parts some say the most monotonous of journeys that a smaller yacht can make due to the distances involved. If you manage the passage by small craft you will join what is still a very short list of people to achieved the feat. The passage was first completed by the legendary Roald Amundsen in 1906. Many dozens of navigators and explorers failed before him in their pursuit of a new trade route between the east and west; Cabot, Hudson and of course Franklin’s expedition of 1845, to name a few. Even now, the route cannot be traversed some years, most recently in 2018 a yacht that had been advised by Canadian Coastguard not to persist had to be abandoned. There is not one passage, since the ice conditions around the various islands differ from week to week and weather is of course a dominant factor. For the larger, better equipped vessels there is real time data courtesy of the CANADIAN ICE SERVICE . Traversing from east to west, Cambridge Bay on Victoria Is. will likely be the last ‘large’ port of call. After this it is remote, often there will not be another Inuit settlement, vessel, or any human beings for hundreds of miles. If you’re looking for beauty, solitude, remoteness and thrive on self-reliance then it will be all of that; a very long passage that truly will take a good deal of planning. The most recent (not a pilot) guide to the history and region is Tony Soper’s 2019 book, North West Passage: Atlantic to Pacific.

Text and image source: owenclarke