In a total of 32 vessels made the journey, but only one of those was a cargo ship. The others included adventure yachts, dedicated icebreakers, a cruise ship, and a tanker.
This compares with 18 vessels in total in , and 16 in Canadian logistics company Fathom Marine expects shipping levels in the passage to keep growing, led by more mining projects across the region. President Niels Gram says his company is "quite bullish in terms of providing marine support for projects that are in the area, and investing to support that". He says that as more mineral mining projects go into production, the raw materials will need to be shipped to world markets, and sites will need to be resupplied.
However, some Arctic experts are not convinced that the Northwest Passage will ever be a busy commercial trade route. Malte Humpert, the founder of The Arctic Institute think-tank, is among them. He says the passage is a "less clear cut" option for shipping than the Northern Sea Route, which runs along the Russian Arctic coast between Asia and Europe. He points out that the Northwest Passage has several geographic disadvantages, including the many islands that keep the region more clogged with ice than the Russian route.
Other challenges for the Canadian route is a lack of deep water ports and limited search and rescue capabilities. There's also the continuing disagreement over access to the passage. Canada claims sovereignty, while the US and others consider the passage to be international.
And when it comes to levels of investment and development, the wider North American Arctic region of Alaska, Canada's northern territories and Greenland is now trailing behind the Russian Arctic.
Image of the Day Water Snow and Ice. EO Explorer. Northwest Passage Open. At the time of publication, it represented the best available science. You might also be interested in view all. Clear ocean water appears navy blue, but some sea ice still appears. In the east, along Ellesmere Island, faint white swirls indicate new sea ice forming at the end of summer melt season.
McClure Strait also sports sea ice, and those blocky, broken-up shapes suggest old sea ice undergoing melt. The generally dark color of McClure Strait could be concealing a thin layer of sea ice throughout the strait, possibly centimeters thick. Unique Imagery Snow and Ice. Cut marks on the bones support the cannibalism claims.
McClure confirmed the existence of the route when his crew became the first to traverse the Northwest Passage—by ship and over the ice on sled—in Yet it would be more than fifty years before Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen would make the entire passage by sea. The entire route was ice-free for the first time in recorded history in the summer of Traffic through the Arctic sea route has increased in the past decade.
In , a record 30 ships made the transit. Crystal Serenity , a luxury cruise ship, made headlines in when it became the first tourist cruise ship to navigate the Northwest Passage. Less ice means that marine species once separated by the North American continent are now able to cross from ocean to ocean with greater ease. In , two gray whales—native to the Pacific Ocean—were spotted in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in more than years. Experts think the Pacific whales may have made their way through the open waters of the Northwest Passage and the Arctic Ocean into the Atlantic.
Increased access to the route has stirred up a decades-old debate over who controls the Arctic waters. Canada claims parts of the passage as its own territorial waters, while the U.
The Franklin Expedition; Parks Canada. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Lawrence River would later enable France to Henry Hudson made his first voyage west from England in , when he was hired to find a shorter route to Asia from Europe through the Arctic Ocean.
After twice being turned back by ice, Hudson embarked on a third voyage—this time on behalf of the Dutch East India Company—in
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