Macht Frei - archive. northeast passage
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Northwest Passage(English) Northwest Passage listen)) is a sea route across the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of North America through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
The famous Franklin Expedition (1845-1847) perished while trying to pass along the Northwest Sea Route. In search of the missing expedition, as well as in the study of this route, many famous sailors and explorers took part, in particular Edward Ingfield, John Ray, Francis McClintock.
The passage was first traversed entirely on water by Roald Amundsen in 1903-1906. Robert McClure, who passed it in 1850-1853, made part of the way on the ice and returned to England on a ship of another expedition.
In September 2007, the European Space Agency stated that over a period of about 30 years of satellite observations, the Arctic sea ice dwindled to a minimum and this made the Northwest Passage navigable. The Canadian government has declared that the passage is within Canadian territorial waters. This statement was received ambiguously by the international community, which in turn may complicate future international shipping.
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Notes
Links
- / Lenta.ru, September 15, 2007
- (unavailable link since 30-09-2016 (891 days))
- (Graham Kendall), SeaExpo, 11/01/2010
An excerpt characterizing the Northwest Passage
Going into the living room, he handed the letter to Princess Marya and, laying out before him the plan of the new building, on which he fixed his eyes, ordered her to read it aloud. After reading the letter, Princess Mary looked inquiringly at her father.He stared at the plan, apparently deep in thought.
- What do you think about it, prince? Desalle allowed himself to ask a question.
- I! I! .. - as if unpleasantly waking up, said the prince, not taking his eyes off the plan of construction.
- It is quite possible that the theater of war will come so close to us ...
– Ha ha ha! Theater of War! - said the prince. - I said and I say that the theater of war is Poland, and the enemy will never penetrate further than the Neman.
Desalles looked with surprise at the prince, who was talking about the Neman, when the enemy was already at the Dnieper; but Princess Mary, who had forgotten geographical position Nemana thought that what her father was saying was true.
- When the snow grows, they will drown in the swamps of Poland. They just can’t see,” the prince said, apparently thinking about the campaign of 1807, which, as it seemed, was so recent. - Benigsen should have entered Prussia earlier, things would have taken a different turn ...
“But, prince,” Desalles said timidly, “the letter speaks of Vitebsk…
“Ah, in a letter, yes ...” the prince said displeasedly, “yes ... yes ...” His face suddenly assumed a gloomy expression. He paused. - Yes, he writes, the French are defeated, at what river is this?
Dessal lowered his eyes.
“The prince does not write anything about this,” he said quietly.
- Doesn't he write? Well, I didn't invent it myself. Everyone was silent for a long time.
“Yes ... yes ... Well, Mikhail Ivanovich,” he suddenly said, raising his head and pointing to the construction plan, “tell me how you want to remake it ...
Mikhail Ivanovich approached the plan, and the prince, after talking with him about the plan for a new building, glancing angrily at Princess Marya and Desalle, went to his room.
Princess Mary saw Dessal's embarrassed and surprised look fixed on her father, noticed his silence and was amazed that the father had forgotten his son's letter on the table in the living room; but she was afraid not only to speak and question Dessalles about the reason for his embarrassment and silence, but she was afraid to even think about it.
In the evening, Mikhail Ivanovich, sent from the prince, came to Princess Mary for a letter from Prince Andrei, which had been forgotten in the drawing room. Princess Mary submitted a letter. Although it was unpleasant for her, she allowed herself to ask Mikhail Ivanovich what her father was doing.
“Everyone is busy,” Mikhail Ivanovich said with a respectfully mocking smile that made Princess Marya turn pale. “They are very worried about the new building. We read a little, and now,” said Mikhail Ivanovich, lowering his voice, “at the bureau, they must have taken care of the will. (IN Lately one of the prince's favorite activities was to work on papers that were supposed to remain after his death and which he called a will.)
The Northwest Passage is a sea route in the Arctic Ocean. It passes through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and stretches along the coast of North America in its northern regions. With the help of it, two oceans are communicated - the Pacific and the Atlantic.
It is necessary to distinguish between the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route. The second of them is the shortest of all connecting the Far East and the Russian Federation in its European part. The legislation of our country defines it as a national transport communication of the Russian Federation in the Arctic, which has developed historically.
Who discovered the Northwest Passage?
The search for a route that would allow passage by sea from Europe to Asia through the Arctic archipelago, which is located north of Canada, located on the mainland, began long ago, at the end of the 15th century. There have been many failed attempts.
Many of them are associated with considerable loss of life and disasters. Finally, in 1903-1906. it has been successfully completed. This was done by Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian researcher.
How it was?
With a small team of six, Amundsen set off on June 16, 1903. He left Christiania (Norway, modern Oslo) on a ship called "Joa". It was converted from a fishing boat and had a displacement of 47 tons. The ship passed to the western coast of Greenland, and then through the Baffin Sea headed for King William Island. The team lived on it for about two years, conducting scientific experiments. A sledge expedition was undertaken over unexplored northern regions, the length of which is approximately 1300 km.
Finally, on August 13, 1905, the ship "Yoa", having departed from King William Island, set off in a westerly direction. The next stop for the winter is King Point, located in northwestern Canada, on the north shore of the Yukon Territory. After wintering in the Arctic for the third time, Amundsen and his team resumed their journey on July 2, 1906.
On August 31, the expedition reached Alaska, to the city of Nome. They were the first sailors to successfully cross the Northwest Passage.
Finding the best path
In June 1940, a small motor schooner called Saint Rock set sail from the port of Vancouver in Canada, which is located on the Pacific coast. She had a displacement of 328 tons and was designed specifically for sailing in the northern seas.
This expedition, which consisted of eight people, was led by Henry Larsen, a policeman from Canada, of Norwegian origin. Before the war, he received the rank of inspector, and he was appointed the organizer of the Arctic detachments.
The St. Rock sailed along the coast of Alaska along the familiar route that fishermen and fur hunters used in northern waters. Having passed the Bering Strait, the ship entered the Amundsen Bay, the brave souls approached. The expedition arranged the first wintering in Walker Bay, on the northwestern coast.
Continuation of Larsen's expedition
Trying to find optimal route through the Northwest Passage, the expedition in 1941 made an attempt to go around Victoria Island from the north and pass through the strait that separates it from Banks Island. Travelers assumed that the waters in the Prince of Wales Sound would be somewhat freer than in the Dolphin Sound, but this was erroneous.
The Prince of Wales Strait was filled with heavy ice. Due to the difficult ice conditions, the sailors were forced to return. After that, the schooner headed along the mainland to the east. When Coronation Bay was passed, the ship was in the Victoria Strait.
Despite the most difficult navigational conditions, when the ice had already begun to bind the water, the Saint Rock approached the Butia Peninsula. Then Larsen went north and took refuge in Palsi Bay in early September. Here the second wintering was carried out, during which more severe conditions were observed than in the previous one.
The thermometer showed minus 57 degrees Celsius when one crew member died. The next year, due to the harsh winter, only in June did the waters get rid of ice, and the expedition moved forward.
Travel Success
After passing between Somerset Island and the ship through the Lancaster Strait, it reached the Baffin Sea. By and large, it could be stated that the expedition was successful. In October 1942, the St. Rock anchored in Halifax. This was the end of a journey that lasted 842 days. Success was achieved due to the fact that the choice of vessel, equipment and crew training were correct.
A reservation should be made: the leader of the expedition assessed its results very reservedly. He called it reconnaissance, the purpose of which was to lay the continuation of another Northern Sea Route. In the conditions of the Second World War this route was very significant. As Larsen said, his expedition proved the possibility of overcoming the Northwest Passage within one navigation, but this can not be done in any year.
Further development of the passage
From the results of the Larsen expedition, it was difficult to assess to what extent ships with a large draft could be used on this route. It wasn't until 1954 that the first commercial ship was sent through the pass. As global warming contributed to the melting of the ice, interest in the passage grew. So, several of his attempts were made:
- 1969 - a heavy supertanker with a capacity of 43,000 hp passed. With. and a displacement of 115,000 tons, with ice reinforcement. At that time it was the largest civilian ship United States, which was accompanied by two icebreakers.
- 1985 - an icebreaker assigned to the US Coast Guard crossed part of the passage from air base USA in Greenland (Tula) to its home port in Seattle.
- 1999 - Russian heavy dry cargo ship towed to the Bahamas.
Opened prospects
As stated in September 2007, over thirty years of satellite observations, the area of sea ice in Arctic waters has decreased to a minimum level. As a result, shipping through the Northwest Passage became possible.
After that, the Canadian government announced that the passage was part of the territorial waters of Canada. The statement was met with mixed reception by the international community, which could negatively impact the future of international shipping.
Comparison of two paths
Today, as development progresses, the Northwest Passage is much less developed than the Northern Sea Route. Among the reasons for this situation are the following:
- Far fewer people live in the Arctic region of Canada than in the Russian Arctic.
- Canada does not have icebreakers that can navigate ships through the Northwest Sea Passage, unlike Russia.
- Poor infrastructure development along the passage. For example, in such villages as Resolute and Cambridge, you can only get by air, while in the Russian Federation Murmansk is connected with St. Petersburg via railway.
- In the Canadian Arctic, ice changes are not tracked for shipping purposes.
- There is no clear definition of the route of the ships.
- Climatic difficulties: The Northwest Passage is covered with much more ice, despite the fact that both routes are located at approximately the same latitudes.
- On the Northern Sea Route there is the port of Murmansk, which is ice-free.
prospects
In August 2008 Peter Faber, a cable boat from Denmark, crossed the passage without difficulty. It is deeper than Panama Canal, and therefore may be accessible to more large ships. Today, several cruise ships sail along the passage with ice reinforcements. In September 2008, on cargo ship MV Camilla Desgagnes from Moneral delivered cargo to four locations in western Nunavut.
In addition to commercial shipping, the prospects for passage are associated with the discovery of new deposits. Iron ore is mined on Baffin Island for export to Europe. In addition, a port is being built in Coronation Bay for the needs of the mining industry.
A project has been developed to transport liquefied gas and oil from northern Alaska to refineries and US markets in east coast through the Northwest Passage. Its length from New York to Tokyo is 14 thousand km, and the path through the Panama Canal is 18.2 thousand km.
Northwest Passage
It was the kind of game that every imaginative child is ready to play all day long. Needed to find " northwest passage"to school. The road there was simple and familiar, but the game was to find some detour. You had to leave the house ten minutes early, turn somewhere to the side and make your way through unfamiliar streets to your goal .
HG Wells "Door in the Wall"The rules for playing Northwest Passage are, as you can see, extremely simple. Not much is required of the player: to prefer unfamiliar paths to familiar ones and to have enough time to be able to move from theory to practice.
I read Wells' story of the game early, before I even went to school. And then he began to look for opportunities to play the "Northwest Passage". Opportunities were, frankly, very bad: a prisoner of my own court, forced to keep a screaming distance from my parents' windows, I didn't have the slightest chance to try the recipe.
However, in six months I had to go to the first class. I was lucky: the school was quite far from home, about twenty minutes on foot (which I managed to verify, because I had already gone there twice accompanied by my parents - to sign up for a preparatory class, and again, for the first lesson of this very preparatory class, from where I was miserably exhibited for the ability to read and write and an innate gift for disrupting lessons). However, my mother consoled me, saying that they would still accept me in the first class: they would not go anywhere, they say. I believed her and excitedly waited for the start of classes, anticipating in advance the daily trips to school and back. Every day is a new road, of course. I started the morning with the question: is the first of September coming soon? My parents were touched by my impatience; their acquaintances set me as an example to their children, so I quickly earned a reputation for being insane. I didn't care: I knew WHAT I expected from the school. Freedom of movement in space, and nothing else.
Everything turned out the way I envisioned. After walking me to school about five times, my mother appreciated the pointlessness of this lesson and quite easily agreed that I was already quite capable of getting there alone. The first few trips to school and back I made along the well-trodden route in order to better get used to it. When for the first time in your life you start walking around the city alone, there are no "familiar" and "usual" ways. At first.
The first deviation from the route, I allowed myself about a week later. As advised by H. G. Wells, I left the house early. Overcame half of the way as in a dream, fading from sweet horror: now, now! Finally turned into an unfamiliar lane. Into an alley that I've never been before. My heart was pounding: I learned the value of the word "for the first time." Turning back, I did not recognize the street along which I had just walked, and I almost screamed in horror. However, after a few seconds, I realized that everything was in order with the street, I just had never looked at it from such an angle. Fear was replaced by delight; I walked resolutely down an unfamiliar lane. Then he turned and turned again. I made a small loop, returned to the familiar street and went on in the usual way. A small feat, however, dashing trouble is the beginning!
After a couple of months, I knew several dozen ways from home to school. I had two game mates with whom I could compete (of course, three players are not enough, however, most of our peers moved around the city under escort; we sympathized with them indulgently). Over time, we began to write down the names of streets and alleys where we wandered, and the numbers of houses near which we should turn off, so that later everyone could try out other people's routes. Even later, they learned to draw diagrams. By the beginning of classes in the second grade, my comrades had noticeably cooled down to the game, and I could no longer stop, I was taken apart by real excitement. I signed up for almost every possible club that required me to stay at school after school: since the classes did not last from bell to bell, but depending on the mood of the teacher, my parents could no longer require me to come home at a fixed time. This gave about half an hour of freedom a day: half an hour, during which at school they knew that I had already gone home, and at home they thought that I was still at school. Half an hour of freedom a day is not so little: in half an hour an experienced player in the "Northwest Passage" usually manages to find a new route where it does not exist and cannot be (for example, to get into a parallel street by courtyards, breaking the locks on the gates, crawling under barbed wire and overcoming wooden fences).
If you think that I’m going to write now that, say, childhood is over, I became an adult busy (read: bald, pot-bellied, boring) person, I forgot my favorite game, and all that, then you still didn’t study me well. I'm just about to write that for an adult, playing the Northwest Passage is not just a pleasure, but a vital necessity. This is much more necessary than a sauna, a gym and a massage (which, however, are not very useful). Because the roads that we travel daily, no matter how diverse they may seem (home - service - coffee shop - shop - second place of work - club - night supermarket - home) gradually wear out under our feet. Continuing to walk familiar routes, we only increase the fatigue of the roads, and it envelops our own feet in sticky dust. Fatigue and boredom are far more dangerous diseases than it seems to those who have not yet realized that they are starting to age, and playing Northwest Passage is an excellent homeopathic remedy, suitable for both treatment and prevention.
As recently as the day before yesterday, I left the house on quite urgent business. But instead of going out and hailing a taxi, I turned into a courtyard, went out onto a parallel street, crossed several more courtyards, wandered into a parking lot, from there to the fence of some institute, from there onto a strange narrow highway surrounded by low industrial buildings. sight, then I climbed over a low wire fence, climbed a hill and squatted in surprise when I heard the whistle of an approaching train ... The gravel on the railway embankment was warm, like the skin of a living creature; plantain grew between the sleepers; the branches of the bush swayed under the weight of the tits.
My phone rang in my pocket: one of my colleagues wanted to make sure I hadn't forgotten about the meeting. "Yes, I'm on my way to you," I yelled, trying to block the roar of the rapidly approaching freight train. The roar was also heard "at the other end of the air." "Are you on the train?" - "No, I'm walking along the sleepers," I said honestly. "I'm playing the Northwest Passage. Do you want me to teach you?"
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. 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 stated: it is impossible to pass through the labyrinth of the straits of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, constantly clogged with ice. By the end of the 18th century, a chain of straits leading to the Northern 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 that was it personal funds Amundsen. 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 west bank King Wilman Island, which became known as Ghoa Bay, was exceptionally calm and efficient. 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 dog sledding around 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 there was a whole flotilla of American whaling ships: 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 Northern Canada and Alaska. The expedition of the Norwegians on the tiny yacht "Joa" 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 did the Norwegian sailor Larsen pass in one year from Atlantic Ocean to Tichiy, 12 years after a similar crossing 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.