Northwest passage

The northwest passage is a navigable sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the North American Arctic, between Baffin Bay and the Bering Strait. In 1508 Sebastian Cabot sought a sea passage through the north of the continent and believed he had discovered such a passage. Spanish chronicler López de Gómara, who may have known Cabot in Spain, confirmed that Cabot intended “to go by the north to Cathay, and to bring thence spices in a shorter time than the Portuguese did by the south.” European interest in Arctic exploration enjoyed a renaissance in the early 19th century. In 1818 John Barrow, the Admiralty’s second secretary and a noted traveller, proposed Arctic exploration as an ideal means of employing naval officers and men left idle owing to the end the Napoleonic wars. His particular interest was in finding the northwest passage; it became the focus of British naval exploration for the next 36 years, and the names Sir John Franklin, William Edward Parry, and John Ross are now inseparably linked with it.