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Article: Plying a fabled waterway.(as Arctic waters warm, Northwest Passage becomes viable route)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- U.S. News & World Report
- Article date:
- August 28, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 All rights reserved. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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John Franklin should have waited. The Northwest Passage, the ice-choked Arctic shortcut from Europe to Asia, had defeated generations of explorers, but the Englishman's 1845 attempt to find a route was the most spectacular failure. Pack ice trapped his two ships in the maze of channels north of Canada, and Franklin and his 128 men were never seen again, despite many searches. It wasn't much easier decades later, when Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first to conquer the passage. When he finally reached the Pacific in 1906, he had spent three years--including two icebound winters--making the crossing.
These days, the fierce, fabled Northwest Passage can ...