Film Northwest Passage. Who discovered the Northwest Passage

NORTHWEST PASS

At the age of fifteen, Amundsen accidentally got a book by the English polar explorer John Franklin, in which he talked about an expedition that explored the coast of North America between the Hudson Bay and the Mackenzie River. J. Franklin's book "The story of a journey to the shores of the Polar Sea in 1819-1822." abounded with descriptions of the difficulties that lie in wait for man in the Arctic. Often, travelers had to eat lichens and even eat worn out shoes. Many members of the expedition died. Young Amundsen was fascinated by the descriptions of these adventures.

“It is surprising that of the whole story, it was precisely the description of these hardships experienced by Franklin and his companions that most of all attracted my attention. A strange longing flared up in me to endure the same kind of suffering someday” (“My Life”, p. 8). In 1845, John Franklin led a major expedition on the ships Erebus and Terror to find the Northwest Passage. The expedition disappeared into an archipelago of islands north of Canada. For many years, dozens of rescue expeditions have been looking for Franklin and his companions. Only in 1859 was it possible to discover evidence tragic death expeditions. During the search, a significant part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago was described and the Northwest Passage was discovered in parts.

This passage went through complex maze straits almost permanently clogged with sea ice. This circumstance cooled the ardor of the captains and shipowners, who hoped to take advantage of this passage, which was shortest way from the Atlantic to Pacific Ocean. It was recognized that this passage has no practical significance.

The young Norwegian, after reading a mountain of books about the search for the Northwest Passage, dating back to the time of John Cabot, set on fire with the idea to conquer it. And he began to prepare for the implementation of this goal in secret. Secretly because his mother, whom he loved very much, did not want him to become a sailor, much less a polar traveler. Then he realized that for polar travel, first of all, endurance and physical hardening are needed, and he was a sickly boy. He began to play sports: he played football, went skiing, slept in the winter with the windows open.

At the insistence of his mother, after the gymnasium, Amundsen entered the medical faculty of the university. But three years later, his mother died, and he left the university.

“Death saved her from the inevitable discovery that my ambition and interests had taken completely different paths” (“My Life”, p. 10).

At that time he was in his twenty-first year. After completing his compulsory military service, he began to study navigation on his own. IN summer seasons From 1894-1896, Roal was hired as a sailor on sailing schooners that hunted seals in the Greenland Sea in order to gain seamanship. Soon he passed the exam for a navigator long-distance navigation. Just in those years (1893-1896) the Norwegian ship "Fram" made its famous drift through the Arctic basin. When it became clear that the ship was drifting a lot south of the pole, the expedition leader Fridtjof Nansen, taking Hjalmar Johansen as his companion and leaving Otto Sverdrup in command of the ship, set off on skis to the North Pole. They did not reach the goal, but set a record for moving north and, turning back, went out on the ice to Franz Josef Land. There the travelers met with the English expedition of Jackson. By happy accident almost on the same day that Nansen returned to Norway, the Fram left the ice off Svalbard.

Nansen became the most popular polar explorer. The triumphal meeting arranged for him in Norway further fueled the ambition of the young Amundsen. In 1897, he heard that the Belgian de Gerlache de Gomery was forming an expedition to Antarctica. Amundsen went to Antwerp and secured a meeting with de Gerlache. The Belgian sailor quickly realized that the Norwegian was exactly the person he needed: he was young, hardy, had experience sailing in polar waters. In addition, Amundsen did not demand high pay for work on the expedition and agreed to land on the coast of the icy continent and stay there for the winter. At twenty-five, Amundsen became the first navigator on the Belgica (Belgium) ship.

The purpose of the Belgian expedition was to discover the South Magnetic Pole - the point where the Earth's magnetic field lines intersect. By that time, only one thing was known - this point is located somewhere on the Antarctic continent.

At the end of 1897, at the height of the Antarctic summer, the Belgica, after entering Tierra del Fuego headed for Victoria Land. At the South Shetland Islands, the scientific staff of the expedition, together with its leader, began collecting zoological and geological collections, surveying the coast, and making magnetic and meteorological observations. Carried away by scientific work, the travelers missed the most favorable time for the realization of the main goal of the expedition. As a result of a combination of circumstances, the Belgica was caught in ice in the southern part of the current Bellingshausen Sea and fell into a long drift.

Of all the members of the expedition, only four - the Romanian biologist Rakovitsa, the Polish meteorologist Dobrovolsky, the American doctor Cook and the Norwegian Amundsen - were prepared for life in polar conditions; it was this four that was intended to land on the continent. But she was not destined to take place.

The food supply and crew equipment were not designed for such a long period. The winter was tragic. Two of the sailors went mad, and most fell ill with scurvy and were on the verge of death. Cook and Amundsen knew from descriptions of previous polar voyages that fresh meat was a good cure for scurvy. Even at the beginning of wintering, they began to kill seals and penguins; their carcasses were kept in the snow at the side of the ship. However, out of some strange prejudice, de Gerlache forbade the use of this meat for food. But when the head of the expedition and Captain Lecointe also fell ill with scurvy, and so seriously that they were forced to transfer the leadership of the expedition to Amundsen, the first thing he did was make the cook cook seal meat.

“It was amazing to observe the effect caused by such a simple change of food. Within the first week, everyone began to noticeably get better” (“My Life”, p. 26).

The forced drift of the ship lasted thirteen months. Having recovered from the illness, the scientists of the expedition resumed their scientific observations. Only in the late Antarctic autumn, at the end of March 1899, the ship broke free from ice captivity. Two years after setting sail, the expedition returned to Europe.

The first wintering in the ice was a good school for Amundsen. The experience gained and a careful study of the descriptions of successful and unsuccessful polar expeditions convinced him that victory and success are guaranteed only to those who are carefully prepared for work and life in harsh conditions.

Returning from the expedition, Amundsen passed the exam and received a captain's diploma. Now it's time to take on the dream of youth - the conquest of the Northwest Passage.

But this required money and moral support. And Amundsen decided to turn to his famous compatriot - Fridtjof Nansen. Now he was no longer the enthusiastic youth that Nansen had met in a crowd of his kind after returning from expeditions. After swimming with the Belgians, Amundsen himself became a famous person.

“I knew that one word of encouragement from his lips would be invaluable support for my plan, just as an unfavorable review could be fatal to him” (“My Life”, p. 29).

But Amundsen's fears were in vain: Nansen approved the plan and, moreover, began to actively help the expedition. He recommended not only trying to swim out of Atlantic Ocean in the Pacific, but also to make observations in the region of the North Magnetic Pole in order to find out how much its position has changed compared to 1831, when it was discovered by James Clark Ross.

“Otherwise, my plans would not have been taken seriously and I would not have been able to get the necessary support” (“My Life”, p. 30). Amundsen approached this task with the utmost conscientiousness. He goes to Hamburg to the well-known geophysicist Professor Georg von Neumeier in order to acquire skills in geomagnetic observations. Neumeier treated the young Norwegian very favorably and gave him the opportunity to study at the Hamburg Naval Observatory. After spending several months in Hamburg, he continued his internship at the Wilhelmshaven and Potsdam observatories. Thus, Amundsen prepared very thoroughly for the implementation of the program of scientific observations. He first purchased scientific instruments, and in 1900 bought a small sailing yacht with a displacement of 47 tons, built in 1872, that is, in the year of his birth. He named her "Yoa". Having repaired the ship, in the summer of 1901 Amundsen went to the Greenland Sea to test it in open ocean and simultaneously perform oceanographic observations here.

The fact is that Nansen, in processing oceanographic observations made during the drift of the Fram, expressed. hypothesis about the formation of cold deep waters in the center of the Greenland Sea. However, to speak more confidently about this, he needed additional observations. According to the program drawn up by Nansen, Amundsen carried out such observations near the coast of Svalbard from the Gjoa.

“I knew that Dr. Nansen needed some data, and I wanted to get it for him as a token of my gratitude. He was extremely pleased to receive them from me in the autumn” (“My Life”, p. 32).

These observations proved to be very valuable. They made it possible for Nansen to establish that cold deep waters are formed in the Greenland Sea as a result of the subsidence of cooling in winter surface water between Jan Mayen and Svalbard. This was a very major discovery in oceanography.

Another year was spent on raising money, preparing equipment and re-equipping the vessel. As an advance payment for future scientific. results of the expedition Amundsen managed to get a large loan from the state. But even this was not enough. In search of money, he besieged everyone and everything, he had to take many goods on the security of the ship. In the end, he went on a voyage in secret - at midnight, in the pouring rain. It was June 16, 1903.

“When the day broke on our fierce creditors, we were already at a safe distance on the high seas - seven pirates, the happiest of all that have ever sailed under the black flag” (“My Life”, p. 32).

Yes, there were only seven of them: the head of the expedition, Amundsen, who is also the captain, his assistant, two navigators, two mechanics and a cook. But these people knew how to do everything. Six Eskimo huskies were taken on board, a gift from Otto Sverdrup - he brought them from a voyage on the Fram in the Canadian Arctic archipelago.

At first, the voyage of the Gjoa proceeded safely, mainly under sail, since the engine was low-powered - only 13 horsepower. Having entered the small village of Godhavn, located on the western coast of Greenland, the ship took on board ten more sled dogs, sleds, kayaks, skis, cans of kerosene and other polar equipment ordered in advance. The ship then proceeded north along the Baffin Sea. west coast Greenland, choosing a path through floating ice and tacking between icebergs.

From Cape York, the ship proceeded through the northern part of the Baffin Sea to the west, to Lancaster Sound. This strait was free of ice. On August 22, the Gyoa anchored off Beachy Island in Erebus Bay. Here Amundsen made a series of magnetic observations. In these places in 1845/46 the first wintering of the Franklin expedition took place. From here, the British headed southeast and then south across Peel Strait.

According to Amundsen, 1903 was "an extraordinarily happy year in regard to the ice." All previous expeditions met here united sea ice. And the Gyoa sailed through a chain of straits between the islands in clear water, however, with strong waves, frequent fogs and poor visibility. On August 30, 1903, the ship passed along the western coast of the Boothia Peninsula, where James Ross had located the magnetic North Pole 72 years earlier.

It cannot be said that the voyage was completely serene. In these almost unexplored waters, the ship landed on stones, but then a huge wave picked it up and carried it over the reef. However, during the impact on the stones, the steering pins popped out of the sockets of the hinges. The case rescued the Norwegians this time too - a few minutes later the pins slipped back into their sockets and the steering wheel again began to obey the helm. And one night spilled kerosene caught fire in the engine room. Luckily, the fire was spotted and extinguished in time. And finally, for four days a fierce storm raged in unfamiliar waters, and only skillful maneuvering saved the fragile ship from death.

In September, frosts began, the polar night was approaching, and Amundsen decided to put the ship in for the winter. A calm cove surrounded by hills was discovered off the southern coast of King William Island. It was called Joa Bay. To the west stretched the narrow Simpeon Strait, separating King William Island from North American continent. The strait was completely clear of ice, and the ship could move further west.

“So the Northwest Passage was open to us. But our goal, first of all, was to make observations in the region of the North Magnetic Pole, and the passage was already a matter of secondary importance ” .

Even on the way to the wintering place, travelers landed on the shore in a boat and placed houris of stones in conspicuous places, under which Amundsen left notes on the state of affairs in the expedition. Although the expedition was prepared with the utmost care, the entire history of polar travel indicates that in the polar regions, and even in unexplored places, chance easily develops into a pattern and at any moment can lead to disaster. Even before leaving Norway, Amundsen agreed with his mentor Nansen about the installation system of the Guriev in case of searching for an expedition.

So, the first stage of the expedition was completed successfully. On September 12, 1903, leaving behind a significant part of the journey through unexplored waters, the ship was put up for the winter. For magnetic observations, a magnetic observatory was built on the shore of the bay. It was knocked together from empty boxes with special copper nails; boxes for stability were covered with sand. The foundation for the installation of tools was laid out of stones and fastened with cement. A dwelling house for two observers was built 65 meters from the observatory.

In early October, the bay and the strait froze over. From the northern islands to the south, herds of deer went, and the winterers made a solid supply of deer meat. At the end of October, the Eskimos came to the wintering place. Relations with the indigenous people of these places have been favorable from the very beginning.

“Our friends were dumbfounded - the Eskimos visited us many times and always in whole crowds. They willingly came at dinner time, built their snow huts and stayed with us for several days.

The Eskimos taught Amundsen and his comrades how to build snow huts - igloos. In marching conditions, they were more comfortable than European tents, if only because they did not need to be carried with you. This was an important circumstance, since in winter, with frosts reaching -60 °, travelers made long trips in order to more accurately determine the location of the magnetic pole.

The long, harsh winter passed, the polar day came, followed by a short spring and summer. Somehow suddenly the earth was full of flowers and herbs, birds, mosquitoes and flies appeared. Everything was in a hurry to live after a long winter sleep. In August, Amundsen undertook a tour of the area, making geomagnetic observations. Unlike last year, this summer the straits were not free of ice, only narrow strips of water formed near the coast. Winter was approaching, and the Gyoa was still trapped in the ice. Soon, open areas of water began to become covered with ice again.

Amundsen wrote about this:

“Although it was still early, we had to admit to ourselves that winter would soon come ... On the night of September 21, real ice formed everywhere and the second wintering began” (“Northwest Passage”, p. 154).

Amundsen often made trips to the Eskimo villages, trading small household items and various European trinkets for fish and venison.

One day, Amundsen ended up in the Famine Bay area, in the area where the remains of the main group of the Franklin expedition were found.

“Ironically, this terrible name is given to exactly the place that is the most beautiful and richest on the entire American coast,” writes Amundsen in his book The Northwest Passage (p. 163). - In the spring, when the coastal polynya opens up, countless large fat salmon are caught here. A little later, endless herds of deer appear and stay here for the whole summer. In autumn, you can catch cod in unlimited quantities ... But the fact is that travelers came here when the lowland was covered with snow. ., where nothing spoke of life ... And, of course, on the whole earth in winter there is no other place so abandoned and so deserted as this.

Roald Amundsen in his cabin on the Gjoa. The hardships of the journey were not in vain for him: at 33, he was already completely gray-haired.

The famous "Fram" arrived in the Bay of Whales. From here Amundsen started to the South Pole.

The Norwegian flag crowned the southern end of the earth's axis.

Roald Amundsen and Robert Peary, discoverers of the Earth's poles. Between them is polar explorer Ernest Shackleton.

Amundsen passed his entire research path under the guiding star of Fridtjof Nansen.

The man sitting next to Amundsen in the cockpit of the seaplane is the American pilot Lincoln Ellsworth.

Travelers tirelessly cleared runway for a seaplane that crashed on its way to the North Pole...

.. . so that after the next shift of the ice to start all over again.

A seasoned polar explorer congratulates Richard Byrd on his successful jump to the North Pole.

When summer came and flowers bloomed in millions in the meadows, when all the lakes shone and all the streams sang and rejoiced for a brief moment of liberation from the icy shackles, when the birds chirped and whistled in a thousand joyful ways, and the head of the first deer appeared at the open edge of the Arctic Ocean, then only a pile of white bones pointed to the place where the remnants of Franklin's brave team breathed their last - at the last act of the great tragedy ... life until true night comes and lowers its iron curtain between this land and light and life.

During the polar night, many Eskimo families again settled in their primitive huts near Joa Bay. In this neighborhood, there were also minor misunderstandings. By the middle of winter, the Eskimos had run out of meat, and they began to take canned food from the pantry of the ship, that is, to put it simply, to steal. But Amundsen did not make a tragedy out of this, but with tact and calmly settled such conflicts.

In winter, the Eskimos began hunting seals. The study of the life and way of life of the Eskimos was the second, after geomagnetic and meteorological observations, the scientific task of the expedition. At the beginning of the 20th century, the culture of the northern Canadian Eskimos was still almost untouched by the influence of Europeans. This generation of Eskimos did not see the white man. Their grandfathers met in almost the same places with members of the expedition of James Clark Ross, but it was only a short meeting, although the story of the white people was preserved in the legends of the Netchilli tribe.

Amundsen not only studied the language, life, life and traditions of the Eskimos, but also collected a rich collection of Eskimo household items: clothes, kitchen utensils, hunting and fishing tools.

Upon his return, he donated these collections to Norwegian museums, and they are still studied by ethnographers.

In his book The Northwest Passage, Amundsen devoted a large chapter entitled "Inhabitants of the North Magnetic Pole" to describing the life of the Eskimos (pp. 185-240). The value of this description is that it is based on personal observations and not on any preconceived ethnographic or anthropological theories. Here is what he himself writes about this at the beginning of the chapter:

“Beginning the story about the inhabitants of the North Magnetic Pole, the Netchilli Eskimos, I want to make an attempt to portray them as I met them and as I knew them. There are many sources and authorities in this field, and I could turn to them to write a more detailed chapter on the Eskimos for readers, but I deliberately did not read such materials, fearing that I might not report what I myself did not see and did not worry among the Eskimos.

At the end of the chapter on the Eskimos, Amundsen exclaims: “My best wish to our Netchil Eskimo friends - so that "civilization" does not touch them!

But this wish was unrealistic. In the 20th century, when the turn came to develop natural resources In the Canadian North, all the “charms” of capitalist civilization touched the Eskimos: the mineral-rich lands where they roamed freely were occupied by industrial firms without any compensation, and the Eskimos themselves became the object of the most cruel exploitation. Changed radically and their way of life.

Another spring came, the polar summer came again, and finally, on August 13, 1905, the ice broke and the ship left the bay into the narrow Simpson Strait. The further way to the west ran through a maze of completely unexplored straits, often in thick fogs. The nervous tension of these days did not pass without a trace for the head of the expedition.

"... on my return, everyone determined my age between 59 and 75 years, although I was only 33 years old."

“The Northwest Passage has been passed! My dream of adolescence at that moment became a reality.

It was in a bay later named Amundsen's Bay. Further west stretched the Beaufort Sea, clogged with powerful polar ice. Making her way along the coast to the west, on September 2, the Gyoa got stuck in the ice north of the mouth of the Mackenay River and here, at Cape King Point, remained for the third winter. 12 American whaling ships wintered nearby. As in previous winters, the Norwegians carried out geomagnetic and meteorological observations on the coast. Amundsen, in the midst of the cold weather, took a dog ride through the eastern spurs of the Brooks mountain range to the nearest telegraph station to notify the world of his victory. He made this 700 km long journey together with the captain of the deceased American whaler and an Eskimo with his wife. This is a journey beyond the harsh natural conditions, complicated by the whims of the American,

for the first time on such a journey. Be that as it may, on December 5, 1905, Amundsen and his companions, having passed Fort Yukon, reached Fort Egbert, where there was a telegraph office. After sending telegrams and receiving many congratulations in return, as well as exchanging business messages with his brother, who was in charge of his financial affairs in Oslo, in March 1906 Amundsen returned to the wintering place of Joa.

In July, the ice broke, and the Gyoa, rounding Cape Barrow without much difficulty, entered the Chukchi Sea. On August 30, the ship left the Bering Strait behind, and in October anchored in the port of San Francisco. Amundsen donated his small ship to this city as a memento of the conquest of the Northwest Passage. "Joa" was put on eternal parking near the shore of the Golden Gate Park as Museum exhibit. Nowadays, Norwegians dream of returning this famous ship to Norway to put it next to the famous Fram and Kon-Tiki.

Thus, Amundsen's first independent expedition ended in brilliant success. However, his triumph was overshadowed: although he was the first conqueror of the North-Western Sea Route, the prize assigned by the British government for its discovery did not go to Amundsen. Many years before his voyage, it was paid to an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company, Dr. John Rae, and to the English polar explorer, Admiral McClure. McClure, entering northern Canadian waters from the west, swam to Mercy Bay, Banks Island, where the expedition was forced to abandon ship; in the end, she was rescued from trouble by a rescue expedition. As for Dr. Re, he never sailed in Arctic waters, but was the head of a number of land expeditions to the northern shores of Canada and brought the first reliable information about tragic fate Franklin expedition.

This circumstance deeply hurt the Norwegian traveler. Moreover, he had large debts for the expedition. I had to earn money in a different way. During 1906-1907, Amundsen traveled around Europe and America lecturing about his expedition and, as he himself wrote, "... returned to Norway with enough money to pay all my creditors."

Amundsen's achievement is not limited to the conquest of the Northwest Passage alone: he delivered important scientific results to Norway, and although they did not bring money, they formed the treasury of human knowledge. Ethnographic records about the life of the Eskimos and collections of things remained, perhaps, the only material documents characterizing the life of the Canadian Eskimos at the beginning of our century. And the magnetic observations, as Amundsen wrote in his autobiography, “were so extensive and complete that it took about twenty years for the scientists to whom we passed them on our return in 1906 to process them ...”

Calculations have shown that over the 70-odd years that have passed since the discovery of J. Ross, the North magnetic pole has moved 3 degrees to the north. For unknown reasons, the magnetic poles move even in short periods of time, and in different directions.

The expedition to the Gjoa remained the only end-to-end voyage Northwest Passage for nearly forty years. It was repeated only in 1944 by the Canadian motor-sailing vessel Saint Rock under the command of Captain Henry Larsen. This voyage took 86 days. The first part of it passed along the path of Amundsen, however, having reached the Barrow Strait, Larsen led the St. Rock in a more northerly way: through the straits of Barrow-Wycount-Melville-Prince of Wales, and brought him to Amundsen Bay. Since then, voyages in the straits of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago have been undertaken annually and on a large scale with the aim of delivering cargo and supplying settlements and naval bases of the United States and Canada. The next end-to-end voyage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the third in a row, was made by the Canadian icebreaker Labrador in 1954, spending only 68 days.

In 1957, three American hydrographic vessels passed along the Northwest Sea Route, also from east to west.

In 1968, in the north of Alaska, on the coast of the Beaufort Sea in the area of Prudhoe Bay, large oil fields were discovered by American oil companies. The Northwest Sea Route began to be considered as one of the options for exporting oil from the Beaufort Sea from west to east to the southern Atlantic ports of the United States.

As an experiment, a large tanker "Manhattan" with a displacement of 150,000 tons was converted for ice navigation. In the summer of 1969, the tanker, accompanied by American and Canadian icebreakers, passed from the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Barrow through the same straits that the St. Rock had sailed 25 years before, and then returned to the Atlantic in the same season and by the same route. Thus, in our days, the North-Western Sea Route has acquired practical significance.

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This month, former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, now the French representative for the Arctic and Antarctic, traveled to the Arctic aboard the Canadian icebreaker Amundsen. Rokar did not speak very highly of the possibilities of the host in the far North. He said: "I have the impression that Canada has abandoned the struggle to attract in the next 25-30 years most of the cargo traffic on its Arctic route."

Rocard added that Canada is too small a country to pay to turn the Northwest Passage into a viable shipping route. At the same time, he believes Russia is much more prepared to turn its Northern Sea Route into an attractive alternative to the Suez Canal. Russia already has four nuclear-powered icebreakers and is building at least one more. In addition, Russia has just announced that it will establish nine emergency response centers along the route, which will be located from Chukotka to the Barents Sea. Each center will cost $18.5 million and will include rescue, firefighting and helicopter equipment.

Dr. Alexei Knizhnikov, Russian Program Coordinator for the World Fund wildlife on the environmental policy of the oil and gas sector, says the following:

“Without such centers, any commercial operations in the Arctic are fraught with great dangers. These dangers will be significantly reduced as soon as Russia deploys a chain of such centers from Chukotka to the Barents Sea. These centers will ensure the protection of the local population and the fragile environment of the Arctic.”

There is a certain paradox that these centers should protect local population And environment. It seems that not too many preventive measures are being taken to prevent disasters. Rather, Russia is hosting emergency response centers that will be activated when tankers are found to have leaked oil or harmful substances into the water. Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that this country is investing heavily in the North in general, and in the Northern Sea Route in particular. Canada is lagging behind in this respect. Russia is even building 15 new observation stations and 30 automated observation posts. In total, there will be 70 and 33 of them, respectively. It even has the intention of placing additional satellites in space to monitor the weather in the Russian Arctic.

However, it is not entirely true that Canada is "too small a country" to develop the infrastructure of the Northwest Passage. In fact, if we talk about the economy, then its GDP is slightly larger than that of Russia, although Canada lives fewer people especially in the Arctic. Her problems are more related to geography and politics. Geographically, the Northwest Passage has a number of disadvantages. First of all, there is no clearly defined route through the numerous islands of the Canadian archipelago, while the Northern Sea Route goes mainly along the coast of Russia. In addition, Canada has very few infrastructure facilities near the Northwest Passage. Villages along the route, such as Cambridge Bay and Resolute, can only be reached by plane from elsewhere in Canada. At the same time, a favorable factor for Russia is that the ice-free port of Murmansk is located on the Northern Sea Route. At the same time it Big City with direct rail links to St. Petersburg. Although the two routes lie at roughly the same latitude - just south of 70 degrees north latitude - the Northwest Passage is generally more ice-covered than the Russian route. Also, in Canada, recent changes in ice melt are not mapped properly for the benefit of shipping. And because Canada doesn't have the icebreakers needed to steer ships through the treacherous passage, companies are reluctant to shift their shipping from the Suez Canal to the Northwest Passage, despite Somali pirate activity.

Politically, Canada's sovereignty over the Northwest Passage is contested, and above all, it is contested by the United States. There are no disputes about the Northern Sea Route, because it runs close to Russian coast. Also, because Canada is a parliamentary democracy, it's not easy for Canada to just invest in this project, no matter how hard Stephen Harper tries. On the other hand, it is much easier for the Russian authorities in this regard.

While Rocard accuses Canada of a lack of willpower in the Arctic issue, Russia is preparing to escort the largest tanker ever built along the Northern Sea Route. The escort will be carried out by two nuclear-powered icebreakers. Yamal, which recently hosted an important conference on the Arctic, and 50 Years of Victory will lead the Suezmax-class tanker Vladimir Tikhonov with a displacement of 162,000 tons along the Northern Sea Route. Leaving Norway for Murmansk, accompanied by the “50 Years of Victory”, this tanker with gas condensate will reach New Siberian Islands, where he will meet with Yamal. Then he will continue sailing along the Northern Sea Route from final destination in Thailand. Canadian newspapers can't boast of stories of escorting such large ships through the Northwest Passage. While this is a matter of the distant future.

“Her Majesty's Government have decided to make a further attempt to pass the North-West route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, and have found it convenient to entrust you with command over both ships Erebus and Terror allocated for this purpose. In accordance with this, you must, as soon as both ships are ready, go to sea ... ”, - said the instructions received by Captain John Franklin from the English Admiralty.

On far north On the American continent, between the islands of the Canadian archipelago, Franklin hoped to find the Northwest Passage, predicted back in the 15th century by the famous English navigator John Cabot. The passage would be for Europeans the most convenient and shortest route from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It was searched for in the 16th century by the Englishmen Robert Thorne and Martin Frobisher, in the 17th century by the Englishman Thomas James and the Frenchman de La Paterne, in the 19th century by the Englishman John Ross, William Parry and John Franklin himself on their previous Arctic expeditions.

On May 19, 1845, an expedition under the command of Captain John Franklin, consisting of 129 crew members, left England, and, accompanied by the transport ship Baretto Junior, went out into the ocean, heading west. A month later, Captain Franklin made his first stop near Disco Island in Baffin Bay, reloading food and fuel from the transport, then the transport turned back, and the Erebus and Terror moved further west. IN last time they were seen on July 26 west of Melville Bay by the captain of the whaling ship Prince of Wales, Dunnet, who reported a meeting with Franklin's ships. All members of the expedition were healthy and full of hope that the legendary northwest passage would finally be opened! No further information about the expedition was received ...

Captain John Franklin, who led the expedition, was an experienced polar explorer. This was already his fourth Arctic expedition, and the third under his command. Franklin was born on April 15, 1786 in England, Spilsby, at the age of 14 he entered the British Navy, fought, was wounded in 1814 in the battle of New Orleans, and in 1818, as commander of the ship "Trent" participated in the British Arctic expedition, which was supposed to reach the Bering Strait, passing through the North Pole - at that time, the task was completely impossible. Having reached Svalbard, they were forced to turn back.

In 1819-1822, Captain Franklin himself organized and led an overland Arctic expedition to Canada, erasing many white spots from the map of the northern coast of America. The return journey of the expedition was especially difficult, during which 11 out of 20 people died of starvation and deprivation. In 1825-1827, he led a new, successful expedition, exploring more than 600 km of the North American coast, for which he was knighted in 1829.

What could happen to a well-equipped expedition? The ships at that time were also perfectly prepared for the Arctic voyage, and already participated in the successful expedition of James Ross in 1830-1843, for this voyage they were equipped with 20 hp railway steam engines, which made it possible to move at a speed of 4 knots at one o'clock.

A year passed, another, a third... The absence of news was due to the forced wintering, without which at that time not a single Arctic expedition could do. There was enough food on board for three winters, and at first the Admiralty was not very worried. Three years later, in 1848, the first rescue expedition was equipped, which returned to London empty-handed.

On August 23, 1850, the captain of the English ship "Help" Erasmus Omeni landed on Cape Riley, Devon Island, where he accidentally discovered traces of some kind of camp and objects that clearly belonged to the sailors of the British fleet. On August 25, 1850, two ships - the English clipper "Prince Albert" under the command of Congrington Forsyth and the American "Success" of Captain De Haven, approached Devon Island. On the island, they found a cylinder with a note from Omeni telling about the find. The sailors found five ramparts (remnants of once tents) and some things that Forsyth brought to London, where they were carefully examined. According to experts, the finds belonged to the Franklin expedition.

In the meantime, Erasmus Omeni visited a small island near Riley's Point, Beechey Island, and found the site of another Captain Franklin's campsite - a hut of rough stones, tin cans and a torn book with a newspaper dated September 1844. Some time later, the Englishman Penny found three graves there, made of stone slabs with boards with the names of the deceased and the names of the ships - these were Franklin's ships.

In 1851-1852. Another expedition was equipped under the command of William Kennedy. Having opened Belov Strait, Kennedy headed west to the land of the Prince of Wales to Cape Walker, but he did not go south, where he could find Franklin's ships, but returned to England. Soon the British Admiralty appointed a prize for reporting information about the disappeared sailors.

In ice. Photo from liveinternet.ru According to the instructions received by John Franklin from the Admiralty, passing the Lancaster Strait between Baffin Island and Devon Island, the captain had to choose the direction of the further route to the Northwest Passage: follow the Wellington Sound or head west of Somerset Island - both directions were then almost unexplored. Franklin made a mistake - he went through the Wellington Strait and met fields of ice; then the ships headed south, but winter was already beginning, and the "Erebus" and "Terror" stood for the winter near Beachy Island. In the spring of 1846, leaving the first graves on the island, the ships moved on...

It has been 12 years since the expedition left England, and seven years since they found its camp on Beechey Island. Despite many rescue missions, none of Franklin's satellites have been located. Suddenly, the Englishman Dr. John Re, an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company, who in 1854 led an overland expedition to the Boothia Peninsula, heard from the local Eskimos a story about some white people who died of hunger. They saw about 40 white people when they hunted seals off the north coast of King William Island. People explained by signs that their ships were covered with ice and they were making their way to where they could hunt deer... fish river" (river Bak). Some of the corpses lay in tents, others under the boat, which was turned over so as to serve as a shelter for them. The Eskimos also reported cases of cannibalism among starving sailors, and the discovered remains confirmed this information.

So, the place where the Erebus and Terror were covered with ice was named - near King William Island. The traveler also discovered that some Eskimo families kept items of European origin - silver spoons and forks with the initials of Franklin's officers. John Re made a detailed report on his find at the Admiralty. He received the £10,000 bonus promised by the government. But judging by the report and the stories of the Eskimos, the expedition died four years ago. Members of the Admiralty Board declared all members of Captain John Franklin's expedition to have been undoubtedly dead in the Royal Service since March 31, 1854, striking their names from the lists of officers and sailors of the Royal Navy. The activity of government rescue expeditions was stopped.

In total, 39 polar expeditions were engaged in the search for the Franklin expedition. Lady Jane Franklin, the captain's wife, equipped some of them at her own expense, spending her entire fortune on it. She bought a 177-ton steam yacht Fox, and on June 1, 1857, the sailing ship Fox, under the command of the energetic and courageous captain Leopold McClintock, left the Scottish port of Aberdeen. The ship made its first stop on Beachy Island. Actually high place sailors installed a marble slab on the island - so that it could be seen from all sides. An inscription was engraved in gold on the plate - "In memory of Franklin and all officers and colleagues who suffered and died for the cause of science."

From Beachy Island, Captain McClinton headed for King William Island. The tides had already frozen, and the Fox was wintering a few miles from the island. McClinton bought sled dogs in advance and went to hiking. On April 2, 1858, “dividing into groups and following in different directions, we ... must find some trace, a remnant, and maybe even important message about those whose mysterious fate we seek to uncover,” McClinton wrote in the book “The Voyage of the Fox in the Arctic Seas.” McClinton himself commanded one party, and Lieutenant William Hobson commanded the other. From nomadic Eskimo families, they found all new items of European origin - silver dishes with initials, buttons from European clothes. The Eskimos claimed to have found them further south, "where many white people once died of starvation."

Lieutenant Hobson on the northwestern part of the island made a sensational discovery - under a pile of stones piled on the shore, he found a note left by officers of the Erebus and Terror. April 25, 1848. Her Majesty's ships "Terror" and "Erebus" were abandoned on April 22, five miles north-west of this place, where they had been icebound since September 12, 1846 ... Sir John Franklin died on June 11, 1847, and all died ... so far 9 officers and 15 crew members ... Let's go tomorrow, the twenty-sixth, to the Fish River ... ”, - from a note discovered by Lieutenant Hobson.

The same document stated that the ships went through the Pir Strait, but at the end of the summer they encountered pack ice, and in September the Erebus and Terror were covered with ice. They began to wait for spring, but in the spring the huge ice fields began to move. Ships frozen in the ice could not free themselves from it and began to drift along the ice fields. There was hope that the ice would still melt in the summer. Food supplies on the ships were running out. A large number of cans purchased from the London manufacturer Goldner were filled with sand and sawdust, and in the autumn of 1847, when the ice washed the ships to the west coast of King William Island, instead of taking them to clean water, the third in a row began, now a hungry wintering. People suffered from scurvy, a party of sailors sent to the mainland disappeared without a trace.

After the death of Captain Franklin, the surviving people decided to make their way south on foot - almost without food, hoping only for hunting. They went to the next world... All of them died during this terrible campaign - from hunger, cold and disease.

Charles Hall, an American who traveled in the 60s along the probable route of this detachment, found skeletons of officers and sailors of the expedition in the snow. In the 80s, the American Frederik Schwatka, according to the stories of the Eskimos, established the place where the Terror sank, crushed by ice. In the 30s of the XX century, the Canadian L.T. Baroush mapped the place of the death of the Erebus, which was drifting along with the ice for several years longer than the Terror. It is possible that other written documents and logbooks left by the expedition officers will still be discovered, and the burial place of Captain Franklin, who died on the verge of solving the age-old riddle, will be discovered ...

In Alaska and Canada, a cape, mountains, bay, and strait are named after Franklin. Dozens of expeditions looking for Franklin explored many previously unknown areas of polar Canada. But only one of the travelers, who almost exactly repeated the route of the Franklin expedition, reaching King William Island, but then turning a little east and rounding the fatal ice fields, famous Norwegian Roald Amundsen, finally. found the Northwest Passage. At the beginning of the 20th century, he took his ship "Yoa" from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

J. Franklin was already 60 years old when he left London in 1845 at the head of a large expedition of 129 people. Already famous sailing ships Antarctic expedition James Ross were converted into screw steamers and placed at his disposal. The Erebus was commanded by the head of the expedition, and the Terror was commanded by the experienced polar navigator Francis Crozier, who sailed in the Arctic with Parry and in the Antarctic with James Ross.

Passing north along the western coast of Greenland, the ships entered Baffin Bay. And this is the only thing known about them. No further information about the expedition was received. So three years passed, and the government sent several rescue boats, which could not find anything. For the salvation of at least one of the members of the expedition, a reward of twenty thousand pounds was appointed, half of this amount - for reliable information about the fate of the Franklin expedition. Dozens of ships participated in these searches, but for a long time no traces were found, although almost all the straits, bays and bays of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago were examined. Finally, cairns (gurii) were discovered in various places; under one of them in the spring of 1859 (fourteen years after the disappearance of the expedition) was found the last report of Franklin. By this time, quite a lot of finds of traces of the expedition had already accumulated: the remains of camps, various abandoned things, graves and skeletons of the dead.

Based on all these finds, the course of events has been restored, but only until 1848. After Baffin Bay, the ships passed Lancaster Strait. While the Terror remained at the southern entrance to the Wellington Strait between the islands of Cornwallis and Devon, Franklin and the Erebus moved on, but the ice did not let him out of the strait, and he, having rounded Cornwallis Island, returned to the Terror, prepared for wintering near Beachy Island. Three people died this winter. In autumn, when the ice cleared the way, the ships traveled about 250 km along the Peel Strait, leading south. Along the way, Prince of Wales Island was discovered. Behind the strait, which later became known as the name of Franklin, a wide expanse of water opened up. However, the ships could not use it - already at the beginning of the second decade of September they were frozen into the ice, being a few miles from King William Island.

The second wintering claimed the lives of twenty participants in the voyage: they were mowed down by scurvy caused by poor-quality products. As the winter drew to a close, eight men walked across the ice to King William Island and piled houris there with a note describing the expedition's route. Upon their return, these people did not find Franklin alive: having become seriously ill, he died on June 11, 1847. Off King William Island, the third wintering took place, by the end of which no more than a hundred people remained alive. The two legendary ships were abandoned off the west coast of King William, and the people went south, harnessed to a sleigh with a large boat mounted on them. (Subsequently, two bays along these coasts will be called Erebus and Terror.)

People went south, harnessed to a sledge with a boat mounted on them. They didn't need her. Their path along King William Island is literally lined with dozens of corpses. Strongly knocked together coffins at the beginning of the journey are replaced by hastily knocked down ones, and then the dead were no longer buried - the skeletons lie without coffins. The last traces of the tragedy are on the small island of Aleleid, where the wreckage of a boat and a pile of bones were found, and at the mouth of the Back River, the Eskimos found the last forty skeletons.

Search work began in the spring of 1849, James Ross and a Scottish naval officer, Francis McClintock. During the winter, they sleighed around the northern coast of Somerset Island and through the Peel Strait saw the eastern coast of Prince of Wales Island.

New islands, straits, bays were discovered by subsequent expeditions. But William Kennedy and Rene Bello did especially important discovery: they reached on a sleigh the northern tip of the American mainland - the Boothia Peninsula and proved that the wide Franklin Strait separates it from the island of Prince of Wales, the southernmost in the Canadian Arctic archipelago.

The entire third expedition of John Franklin, sent by the British Admiralty to continue the search for the northwest passage in 1845, perished. But a decade-long series of rescue expeditions led to significant discoveries in the north of the American continent. Including those that contributed to the opening of the northwestern sea passage to the Pacific Ocean from the east.

Four centuries ago, the epic search for this path began. Dozens of ships, hundreds of people took part in it, many victims were brought, and more than once the most authoritative polar explorers declared: to pass through the labyrinth of the straits of the Canadian arctic archipelago, constantly clogged with ice, is impossible. By the end of the 18th century, a chain of straits was found leading to the Arctic Ocean or even to the Bering Strait. It remained only to make this passage and practically prove its possibility. This is what the young Norwegian Roald Amundsen decided to do. He was in his thirtieth year and had just returned from Antarctica, where he had been navigator on the Belgica and participated in the first Antarctic wintering aboard that ship.

R. Amundsen is carefully preparing for the expedition, which, apparently, must be difficult, long and dangerous, given the experience of previous expeditions, some of them ended tragically. Amundsen would become famous for the fact that none of his expeditions, however difficult they were, had no casualties. Except for the last one, where he himself became the victim.

But so far, only his second expedition (the first is his own) has begun. Having traveled to many shipyards, Amundsen chose a small yacht "Joa" (with a displacement of only 47 tons). For twenty years she went fishing off the coast of Norway and for seals in polar waters. The yacht was the same age as Amundsen - built in 1872.

In the spring of 1901, Amundsen tested the Gjoa in seal hunting between Svalbard and Greenland, making a series of oceanographic observations according to a program drawn up by Nansen. The necessary "finishing" of the vessel was made, but Amundsen's personal funds ended there. I had to borrow money, take out a loan for the future opening of the northwest passage. He himself lived extremely modestly. In Hamburg, where he lived and worked at the Neumeier Observatory, he rented a cheap room in the attic and spent the minimum on food. In the last days before sailing, a state loan was also received - 40 thousand crowns. With exceptional care, Amundsen rebuilt "Joa", himself participating in the work as a carpenter. Food was purchased for five years, and first-class scientific equipment was purchased. And suddenly in one newspaper there is an article under the heading "Does Norway need new skeletons among the icy deserts?". “Joa is a miserable vessel, and its captain is a frivolous person ...” - it was said in it.

The article had an effect on several creditors: they began to demand money back. It was a disaster. Is it really all the work, self-restraint, stress of the last months - all this is in vain?! And the dream of the northwest passage is not destined to come true?

No! Amundsen will not back down. There is only one way out, and it is very important that Nansen, who visited the yacht on the eve of sailing, agrees with this: "Joa" must go to sea secretly, at night, to escape from creditors.

"How wonderful! There are no more sorrows, annoying creditors ... Alone on a yacht! There are seven of us, we are cheerful and happy. We are sailing to unknown lands, but full of hope and faith," Amundsen wrote that day.

A few years later, Amundsen accidentally found out that then Fridtjof Nansen, without telling him anything, vouched for him to creditors. It was a purely Nansen act...

Amundsen took a five-year supply of food, fuel, clothing and equipment on board the ship, a prefabricated house was loaded on board the ship in case of wintering and material for the construction of a magnetic pavilion: after all, in addition to opening the northwestern passage, Amundsen planned to locate the North Magnetic Pole, located, presumably, on the northern tip of the mainland, on the Butia peninsula.

The first encounter with ice occurred off the western coast of Greenland, in Melville Bay, it took two months to fight against them and cross the Baffin Sea. And then the yacht entered the unexplored, unexplored Lancaster Strait. It was a very difficult path: I had to literally maneuver with pinpoint accuracy among numerous islands, rocks and shoals. Amundsen all the time while passing the strait, was in the "crow's nest" - on the front mast of the ship.

Violent storms also attacked the ship. Once, in order to save the ship, when the wind was swiftly carrying the helpless shell right to the reefs, Amundsen gave an order that seemed crazy to everyone: "Throw the boxes from the deck into the sea!" There were food in the boxes, but they had to be donated. The lightened ship was carried by the wave onto a smooth underwater rock, where it safely waited out the storm. But then a new misfortune arose - a fire in the engine room. And by some miracle it was possible to extinguish it, but thanks to the only correct decision taken by Amundsen - to block the access of air to the engine room.

The Lancaster Strait led to the Simpson Strait, along which, bypassing Victoria Island from the south, it would be possible to continue the journey, but Amundsen, having found a convenient bay for the vessel, decided not to risk it and stopped for the winter in early September. In addition, he was going to make magnetic observations on the Butia Peninsula, which was not far away.

Wintering in the bay on the west coast of King Wilman Island, which became known as Gyoa Bay, was exceptionally calm and productive. The ship, frozen into a three-meter monolith of ice, was constantly visited by the Eskimos, who built a kind of town around it from Eskimo igloos made of snow bricks. Communication with the Eskimos all winter was very close and mutually beneficial. In exchange for all kinds of iron products, the Norwegians received dressed deer skins, from the Eskimos Amundsen learned to build snow houses - igloos, load sleds, and transport them through cracks in the ice. The winter passed quickly, but the coming summer brought disappointment: the ice in the bay did not break, which meant a second wintering in the same place. But it also went well: there was not even a hint of scurvy, which accompanied most of the polar expeditions. Of course, the abundance of wild deer around helped, hunting for which provided fresh food. The whole expedition worked hard all winter. In addition to constant meteorological, hydrological and magnetic observations, long trips on dog sledding along Victoria Island and the straits; about a hundred were put on the map small islands, but the main thing is that the point of the North magnetic pole is precisely set.

The summer of 1905 freed the Gyoa from ice captivity. On August 13, we weighed anchor and it was possible to move on. But again on the way - islands, shoals, underwater reefs, between which only due to its small size the yacht could maneuver. It was constantly necessary to measure the depth, and a special boat was in front of the ship, with which measurements were made, and sometimes no more than two centimeters of water turned out to be under the keel. Amundsen compared Simpson Sound to a "plowed field" - so carefully one had to move along it. But two weeks later, a whaling ship appeared on the horizon: "A ship is visible!" - there was a cry. It was the American schooner "Charles Hansson", which came from another ocean, from the Pacific. And it was a sign that the northwest passage, to which people had been striving for four centuries, had been passed.

“My throat constricted. I was in an extremely nervous state, overworked, and even if this is a sign of weakness, but ... tears welled up in my eyes ... I quickly threw on my clothes. I lingered for a moment in front of the Nansen portrait hanging on the wall, and the image came to life, it seemed Nansen was looking at me and nodding his head ... I nodded to him in response, smiling with happiness, and went on deck, "- this is how Roald Amundsen described this moment.

The goal was achieved, but then a new test - the yacht was jammed with ice, the further path became impossible. Third winter!

This time it was lucky that a whole fleet of American whaling ships was nearby: you could get everything you need. Amundsen, along with one of the whaler captains, sets out on an eight hundred-kilometer dog sled journey to the nearest radio station to inform the world of his discovery.

It was the most difficult route through the icy desert, with the crossing of a mountain range up to three thousand meters high, in winter conditions, when the air temperature dropped to fifty degrees. The journey took five months. And in the summer of 1906, the Gyoa entered the Bering Strait and arrived in San Francisco, met with triumph.

Amundsen's success was no accident. He was not seduced by the very vast expanse of water to which his predecessors went, but after passing through the narrow and incredibly difficult Simpson Strait, he chose a route near the coast of Northern Canada and Alaska. Norwegian expedition to tiny yacht"Yoa" did so much that it took about twenty years to process the material she brought back.

However, unlike the northeast passage - the Northern Sea Route - this route from ocean to ocean has not found practical application. The Canadian entrepreneur Bernier tried to use it for trading purposes immediately after Amundsen passed it, but failed. Only during the Second World War did they return to this idea, and a small ship "Roch" was sent from Greenland to the west for transportation. But it was possible to pass the track only in two navigations. Only in 1944, the Norwegian sailor Larsen passed in one year from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, 12 years after a similar transition was made along the Northern Sea Route. After the American icebreaker Glasher successfully passed the northwestern route in 1954, from time to time the icebreakers began to go around North America. However, this way remains economically inexpedient.

Editing Conrad A. Nervig Cinematographers William V. Skull , Sidney Wagner Writers Bruno Frank , Jules Firthman , Elizabeth Hill , more Illustrators Cedric Gibbons , Edwin B. Willis

Do you know that

The film "Northwest Passage" entered the TOP of the highest-budget films of that time. The funds that were spent on its production amounted to almost 3,000,000 dollars. And although the picture was quite successful, it was not possible to return the money invested in it.
One of the most dangerous scenes that the directors had to film was the passage of the "human chain" through mountain river ford. The difficulty was that there were no understudies on the set. Whether they were not provided, or lost, but the actors had to perform this difficult task on their own. And this fact made some of them seriously think about having their stage fee revised. In order not to put the actors at risk, it was decided to shoot this scene in several stages. The first of them was filmed on one of the lakes in Idaho, but they ended up in a special pool installed at the studio.
It is noteworthy that the fact of crossing the river caused problems not only for the film crew of the Northwest Passage. According to historical information, before crossing the river, Major Rogers' detachment was 154 people, after the river was crossed, its number was 142. 12 people died during the crossing. By the way, this is not the only case when a detachment lost soldiers not in a combat situation. By the end of the expedition, only 100 people returned home.
Fortunately, on the way of the expedition we met good days. A funny incident happened near the walls of one of the British forts. When Major Rogers' detachment approached the fort to resupply the expedition, it was abandoned. It turned out that the commandant of the fort confused the band of rangers with the French troops and decided to retreat. Major Rogers had 10 days to catch up with Lieutenant Stevens to bring him back to the fort.

More facts (+1)

Mistakes in the movie

The very first blunder in this film is contained almost at the beginning. Major Rogers gives parting words to his soldiers before they set out on an expedition, and in his hands is a travel staff. When he begins his speech, the staff rises 15 centimeters above his head, but when the speech ends, the staff, for unknown reasons, becomes almost half a meter shorter.
During the attack scenes, if you look closely, you can see that some of the bayonets on the rifles are moving from side to side. This is due to the fact that some props for the film were made of rubber.
The film also contains some historical inaccuracies. The picture shows an episode when Major Rogers orders his soldiers to carry their whaleboats through mountain ranges on shoulders. In fact, this event has nothing to do with the mission of St. Francis, they happened a few years earlier when Major Rogers was moving to Carillion.
Another funny blunder is contained in the scene of the battle with the Indians. During the battle turmoil, one dead Indian turns his head, and does this in order to avoid a collision with a man running behind him.

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Plot

Beware, the text may contain spoilers!

The events in the film begin to unfold from the moment when the young Langton Towne arrives home with unpleasant news: he has been expelled from Harvard University. Naturally, the family is disappointed, but he is accepted back. The young daughter of an influential clergyman, Elizabeth Brown, is also happy about the return of her fiancé, which cannot be said about her father. He considers Langton a frivolous and frivolous young man, because he dreams of becoming an artist and insists that his daughter break off this relationship. In order to somehow escape from the troubles that have fallen on him, Town goes to a local eatery. There, in a fit of drunken stupor, he starts a conflict that threatens him with imprisonment. To avoid him, Town decides to run away. After some time of his ordeals, he finds himself in a roadside tavern, where he meets a mysterious man in a green uniform. Waking up after yesterday's drinking, the young bully finds himself in a military camp, and the man who got him drunk yesterday turns out to be Major Rogers. The Major is recruiting a detachment of volunteers to make a desperate expedition, and Langton's cartography skills will be very useful to him. This acquaintance will turn the life of the protagonist once and for all. Having passed all the tests, he will return as a real man who does not give up either his dream or his woman.