The Northwest Passage
Four Centuries of Searching for a Route Through the Arctic
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The book explores how Arctic waters changed over time, from the Strait of Anián to the Northern Atlantic and Pacific regions. It covers Captain Cook and Vancouver's contributions, 19th-century attempts, and finally Amundsen's successful transit in 1896. The final chapters examine modern ice retreat and international disputes over passage rights.
This detailed account combines historical expeditions with contemporary Arctic changes. Readers will find it valuable for understanding both the human stories of exploration and current environmental shifts affecting polar regions.
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Before the Little Ice Age, which stretched from the late Middle Ages to the 19th century, Norwegian Vikings ventured into the Arctic waters reaching as far as Ellesmere Island, Skraeling Island, and Ruin Island. They traveled there for hunting and trading with the Inuit and the Dorset culture who lived in that region. From the end of the 15th century through the 20th century, European colonial powers sent explorers on missions to find a sea route north and west around North America. This passage would offer a new path to established trading partners in Asia.
The Northwest Passage was the name England gave to a supposed northern route through North America. For centuries, explorers searched for it along both coasts, but when that path proved impossible, they turned to the idea of a waterway through Arctic waters. Knowledge was limited—some thought seawater could never freeze. Even Captain James Cook, in the mid-18th century, had found fresh water in Antarctic icebergs, which seemed to support this belief. Many believed an open sea existed near the North Pole. This idea lasted for centuries and led to repeated Arctic expeditions. Tragically, many ended in disaster, including Sir John Franklin’s mission in 1845. It wasn’t until the McClure Arctic Expedition, searching for Franklin, that the passage was finally discovered in 1850.
In 1906, Roald Amundsen made history as the first explorer to successfully navigate the Northwest Passage entirely by sea, traveling from Greenland to Alaska in his small ship, the Gjøa. Since then, only a few specially built, ice-reinforced vessels have managed to follow in his wake and complete the journey.
Expeditions heading west from the Atlantic Ocean entered the Northwest Passage through the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, both located in Canada. Not all routes were suitable for larger ships, but vessels moved through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago via straits like the McClure Strait, Dease Strait, and Prince of Wales Strait. From there, they continued westward through the Beaufort Sea and the Chukchi Sea, then passed south through the Bering Strait—marking the boundary between Russia and Alaska—before finally reaching the Pacific Ocean.
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In the 21st century, changes in the Arctic ice pack due to climate change have led people to speculate that the Northwest Passage could soon allow safe commercial shipping for part of the year. On August 21, 2007, the passage became open to ships without needing an icebreaker. Nalan Koc of the Norwegian Polar Institute noted this was the first time since records began in 1972 that the route had cleared. It opened again on August 25, 2008. Some believe the thawing oceans will soon make it possible to sail around the Arctic ice cap, cutting thousands of miles off shipping routes. Professor Mark Serreze from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said: “The passages are open. It's a historic event. We are going to see this more and more as the years go by.”
Some thick ice sections will remain hard to melt short-term, potentially clogging straits or damaging ships during springtime. Cargo routes thus remain slow and uncertain depending on conditions and prediction ability. The Northwest Passage and other Arctic routes aren't always seen as promising by industry insiders due to just-in-time containerized traffic delays and the relative isolation that hinders shipping optimization. Physical damage risks also translate into higher insurance premiums because of Arctic navigation technical challenges. As of 2014, only 12 percent of Canada's Arctic waters have been charted to modern standards. A 2025 study suggests that although navigability may increase over time, reliable planning requires explicit consideration of highly variable ice conditions.
In 2009, a group from Bremen, Germany, called the Beluga group, sent the first Western commercial ships through what's known as the Northern Sea Route, or the Northeast Passage. At around the same time, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a statement about the Northwest Passage, saying that any ships entering it should report to his government first.
In August 1969, the SS Manhattan made history as the first commercial ship to sail through the Northwest Passage. At 115,000 deadweight tonnage, she was also the largest vessel ever to navigate that route.
In 2016, the cruise liner Crystal Serenity made history as the biggest passenger vessel ever to travel through the Northwest Passage. Beginning its journey on August 10, the ship carried 1,500 travelers from Vancouver all the way to New York City. The voyage took 28 days, marking a significant milestone in Arctic shipping and showcasing the growing feasibility of this northern route.
In 2018, two freighters from Baffinland’s port in Milne Inlet, on the north shore of Baffin Island, were headed to Asian ports. Instead of going west through the Northwest Passage, they traveled east, rounded Greenland's tip, and used Russia's Northern Sea Route.
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The western boundary of the Beaufort Sea stretches from Lands End, tracing along the southwest coast of Prince Patrick Island all the way to Griffiths Point. From there, it continues in a straight line to Cape Prince Alfred, which marks the northwestern tip of Banks Island. The border then follows the western shoreline of Banks Island, passing by Cape Kellet, the southwesternmost point, before extending again in a line toward Cape Bathurst on the mainland. This defines the eastern limit of the Beaufort Sea.
The route extends along the East Coast of Ellesmere Island, starting between Cape Sheridan and Cape Norton Shaw, then crossing to Phillips Point on Coburg Island, continuing through to Marina Peninsula, and then on to Cape Fitz Roy on Devon Island. It travels down the eastern shore to Cape Sherard, also known as Cape Osborn, and then across to Cape Liverpool on Bylot Island, proceeding down its eastern coast to Cape Graham Moore, its southeastern tip. From there, it continues to Cape Macculloch and follows the eastern edge of Baffin Island to East Bluff, the southeasternmost point, before ending at the eastern limit of Hudson Strait.
The search for a Northwest Passage touched vast stretches of Arctic coastline, extending as far south as the mainland shore of Hudson Strait. It reached toward the northern edge of Hudson Bay, following the mainland coast all the way from Beach Point to Cape Bathurst. These were the limits of exploration in the north, where early expeditions pushed their vessels and crews into uncharted waters, seeking a route through the frozen wilderness.
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The Vikings explored far north and west, reaching as far as Ellesmere Island and Skraeling Island on hunting trips and while trading with Inuit groups. Their settlements in Greenland led them deep into Arctic waters. But as the Little Ice Age arrived, conditions grew too harsh for European ships to attempt passage through what would later be called the Northwest Passage. Seafaring efforts in those waters stopped until the late 15th century.
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In 1539, Hernán Cortés sent Francisco de Ulloa to explore the western coast of North America along the Baja California Peninsula. Ulloa found that the Gulf of California was actually the southern end of a strait that people believed connected the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. This idea helped keep alive the myth of a large island called California and started a long search for what came to be known as the Strait of Anián.
The strait likely got its name from Ania, a Chinese region mentioned in a 1559 version of Marco Polo’s book. It first showed up on a map by Italian cartographer Giacomo Gastaldi around 1562. Then, five years later, Bolognino Zaltieri mapped a narrow and winding Strait of Anian separating Asia from the Americas. In European dreams, this strait became a simple sea route to the court of the Great Khan in Cathay, northern China.
Cartographers and seamen kept trying to prove the strait's existence, even as doubt grew. Sir Francis Drake searched for the western entrance in 1579. A Greek pilot named Juan de Fuca, sailing from Acapulco under Spain’s flag, claimed he’d traveled the strait in 1592. Then in 1640, a Spaniard named Bartholomew de Fonte said he'd made the journey from Hudson Bay to the Pacific using the same route.
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The first known effort to find the Northwest Passage began with John Cabot’s 1497 voyage, sent by Henry VII to seek a direct path to the Orient. Centuries later, in 1524, Charles V commissioned Estêvão Gomes to explore a northern route through the Atlantic to the Spice Islands. Then, in 1576, Martin Frobisher led an English expedition west into what is now the Canadian Arctic, making three trips in search of the passage; his first charted bay was later named after him. In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who had written about discovering the route and supported Frobisher, claimed Newfoundland for England. On August 8, 1585, John Davis entered Cumberland Sound on Baffin Island.
Jacques Cartier explored the Saint Lawrence River in 1535, searching for a way through the continent. He thought he was close to China, and when he reached rapids near Montreal, he named them “la Chine,” which means China in French. Samuel de Champlain later renamed the rapids Sault Saint-Louis in 1611, but by the mid-19th century, they were called Lachine Rapids. In 1602, George Weymouth became the first European to sail into what would later be called Hudson Strait, traveling 300 nautical miles into it. His expedition was funded jointly by the British East India Company and the Muscovy Company, and he used the same ship, Discovery, that Henry Hudson had used on his final voyage.
John Knight, who worked for the British East India Company and the Muscovy Company, tried to find the Northwest Passage after Weymouth's earlier efforts. In 1606, he set out but his ship ran aground and nearly sank in the ice before he vanished while looking for a safer spot. Then in 1609, Henry Hudson sailed up what’s now called the Hudson River, believing he might find the route. He was encouraged by the saltwater he found in the estuary and made it to present-day Albany, New York, before giving up. On September 14, 1609, Hudson entered the Tappan Zee moving upstream from New York Harbor. At first, he thought the widening river meant he had found the Northwest Passage. He sailed as far as present-day Troy before deciding there was no such strait there. Later, he explored the Arctic and Hudson Bay.
In 1611, Henry Hudson's crew mutinied in James Bay, setting Hudson, his teenage son John, and seven others adrift in a small open boat never to be seen again. The only account comes from mutineer Abacuk Pricket. Sir Thomas Button led a 1612 mission aboard the Discovery seeking Hudson and continuing the Northwest Passage, but failed to locate him, instead exploring the west coast of Hudson Bay before returning home due to illness. William Gibbons attempted the journey in 1614 but was turned back by ice. Robert Bylot, a Hudson crew survivor, returned to Hudson Strait in 1615 in the Discovery, only to be blocked by ice. In 1616, Bylot sailed again with William Baffin, reaching Lancaster Sound and achieving a record latitude of 77°45′ North—an achievement that stood for more than two centuries before ice once again stopped their progress.
On May 9, 1619, Jens Munk sailed from Denmark-Norway with sixty-five men and two ships, the Einhörningen and the Lamprenen, to find the Northwest Passage. He reached 69° in Davis Strait, found Frobisher Bay, and struggled through Hudson Strait for nearly a month. By September 1619, he entered Hudson Bay and spent the winter near the Churchill River. His crew suffered greatly from cold, famine, and scurvy, and only Munk and two others survived to sail home on July 16, 1620, arriving in Bergen, Norway, on September 20. Meanwhile, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle built a ship called Le Griffon to explore the Great Lakes. He traveled across Lake Erie and Lake Huron, made port at Mackinac Island, and landed at Washington Island to trade with Pottawatomie Indians. After leaving the ship behind to return with furs, Le Griffon vanished in 1679 during its maiden voyage. In 1682, La Salle journeyed down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. He led a French expedition in 1684 to establish a colony there and was murdered by his own men in 1687.
In May 1746, Henry Ellis, an Irishman, joined a company searching for the Northwest Passage. After a fire on board his ship, he sailed to Greenland and traded with the Inuit on July 8. He then traveled overland to Fort Nelson and spent the summer on the Hayes River. The next June, he tried again without success before returning to England. Later, in 1772, Samuel Hearne, an English fur trader, journeyed overland from Hudson Bay to the Arctic Ocean, proving there was no strait connecting Hudson Bay to the Pacific.
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Most expeditions searching for the Northwest Passage began in Europe or along the east coast of North America, aiming to sail through the Arctic waters toward the west. These journeys were driven by the hope of finding a shorter route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Though many explorers set out from these starting points, only limited progress was made in mapping the western parts of the passage they imagined. The search pushed further into uncharted northern territories, testing the limits of navigation and endurance. Some of the earliest efforts focused on understanding how far west the route might extend, even as the true challenges of the Arctic remained largely unknown.
In 1728, Vitus Bering, a Danish-born Russian navy officer, used the strait first discovered by Semyon Dezhnyov in 1648 but later accredited to and named after Bering—the Bering Strait. He concluded that North America and Russia were separate land masses by sailing between them. In 1741, with Lieutenant Aleksei Chirikov, he set out again, exploring beyond Siberia. While they were separated, Chirikov discovered several of the Aleutian Islands, while Bering charted the Alaskan region. His ship was wrecked off the Kamchatka Peninsula, as many of his crew were disabled by scurvy.
The Spanish sent several expeditions to the northwest coast of North America in the late 1700s, searching for a Northwest Passage. One of those voyages was led by Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra in 1775, and another in 1779. Francisco Antonio Mourelle served as Quadra’s second in command during the 1775 journey. His journal was captured by the English, translated, and published in London, which encouraged more exploration.
Captain James Cook used a journal during his work in the area. In 1791, Alessandro Malaspina traveled to Yakutat Bay in Alaska, which was said to be a possible Passage. Francisco de Eliza led several trips into the Strait of Juan de Fuca in 1790 and 1791, looking for a route through the Northwest Passage and discovering the Strait of Georgia. To explore this new inland sea fully, an expedition under Dionisio Alcalá Galiano set out in 1792. He was specifically told to check every channel that could lead to the Northwest Passage.
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In 1776, Captain James Cook set sail on a mission to find the Northwest Passage, funded by a £20,000 reward offered by Parliament after a 1745 act was extended in 1775. At first, the Admiralty intended for Charles Clerke to lead the expedition, with Cook acting as a consultant, since he had been retired since his famous Pacific voyages. But Cook had studied Bering’s journeys closely, and so the Admiralty decided to trust the experienced explorer with command, placing Clerke as his second in charge.
After traveling across the Pacific, Captain James Cook turned north from Nootka Sound in April 1778 to search for a Northwest Passage from the west. He followed the coastline, mapping the area and looking for regions that Russian explorers had reached about forty years earlier. The Admiralty had ordered him to skip all rivers and inlets until reaching sixty-five degrees north latitude. But despite his efforts, Cook did not find evidence of the passage he was seeking.
Several officers aboard the expedition, among them William Bligh, George Vancouver, and John Gore, considered the possibility of finding a route 'improbable'. They had sailed as far as 65°N when the coastline began to steer them southward. Still, John Gore persuaded Captain Cook to push on into what is now known as Cook Inlet, hoping to discover the passage. The journey continued to the edge of the Alaskan peninsula and the beginning of the Aleutian Islands, a chain stretching 1,200 miles or 1,900 kilometers. Even after reaching 70°N, all they found were icebergs.
Between 1792 and 1794, George Vancouver led an expedition that carefully examined every potential route along the Northwest Coast. He had previously sailed with Cook and now continued the work of mapping the region. Vancouver confirmed there was no viable passage south of the Bering Strait. His findings were supported by Alexander MacKenzie, who explored both the Arctic and Pacific Oceans in 1793.
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In the first half of the 19th century, explorers began mapping parts of the Northwest Passage north of the Bering Strait. John Ross led one expedition, followed by Elisha Kent Kane and William Edward Parry, while James Clark Ross also ventured into the region. Overland journeys were undertaken by John Franklin, George Back, Peter Warren Dease, Thomas Simpson, and John Rae. In 1826, Frederick William Beechey explored the north coast of Alaska and discovered Point Barrow.
Sir Robert McClure was credited with discovering the Northwest Passage in 1851 after he spotted Melville Island from across McClure Strait, while standing on Banks Island. But at that time, the strait wasn't actually navigable by ship. The real usable route connecting the entrances of Lancaster Sound and Dolphin and Union Strait wasn’t found until 1854, when John Rae made the discovery.
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In 1845, Sir John Franklin led a well-supplied two-ship mission into the Canadian Arctic to map the final stretch of uncharted coastline. They believed less than 500 kilometers of mainland coast remained unknown. When the ships didn’t return, search efforts followed, eventually leading to detailed maps and clues about the route. Artifacts revealed that by 1846, the vessels were trapped in ice near King William Island, halfway through the passage. Franklin died in 1847, and Captain Francis Crozier took command. The crew abandoned the ships in 1848 and attempted to reach safety on foot, but no survivors were ever found. In 1853, explorer John Rae heard from local Inuit about the expedition’s fate, though his accounts of cannibalism were not well received in Britain.
In 1981, anthropologist Owen Beattie examined remains linked to the Franklin expedition, leading to further study of tissue and bone from three seamen—John Torrington, William Braine, and John Hartnell—exhumed from Beechey Island’s permafrost. Laboratory tests showed high lead levels in all three, from the lead-based solder used on the 8,000 tins of food the expedition carried. Another researcher suggested botulism may have killed crew members. In 1996, evidence confirmed what John Rae had reported in 1854 based on Inuit accounts: the final crew members may have resorted to cannibalism to survive.
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Commander Robert McClure led the HMS Investigator on a journey through the Northwest Passage from 1850 to 1854, moving eastward from west to east. He began his voyage in December 1849, sailing south through the Atlantic Ocean past Cape Horn and into the Pacific. From there, he sailed north, passed through the Bering Strait, and turned east, eventually reaching Banks Island.
McClure's vessel became stuck in the ice for three harsh winters near Banks Island, at the western edge of Viscount Melville Sound. By that time, he and his crew were on the brink of starvation. They were eventually located by a group traveling across the frozen surface on sledge, coming from a ship of Sir Edward Belcher's expedition. These rescuers brought McClure and his men back to Belcher's fleet, which had sailed into the sound from the east. The expedition returned to England in 1854 aboard one of Belcher's ships. McClure and his crew became the first known individuals to complete a journey around the Americas and discover and travel through the Northwest Passage—doing so by both ship and sledge over the ice. McClure himself, along with his vessel, was later found by a party from HMS Resolute, one of Belcher's ships, making his overland journey relatively brief.
McClure’s achievement was remarkable for its time, earning him a knighthood and a promotion to rear-admiral in 1867. He and his crew were also awarded £10,000 by British Parliament. In July 2010, Canadian archaeologists discovered his ship, HMS Investigator, lying about 8 meters below the surface, still largely intact.
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John Rae was an explorer working for the Hudson's Bay Company, not part of the Royal Navy like Franklin and McClure. While those famous expeditions used ships and hundreds of people, Rae traveled on land, using dog sleds and survival techniques he learned from the Inuit. His missions included fewer than ten men and had excellent safety records, losing only one person over many years of Arctic travel. In 1854, Rae returned to civilization with vital information from the Inuit about what happened to the Franklin expedition.
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The first explorer to complete the Northwest Passage by ship was Roald Amundsen. Between 1903 and 1906, he led a three-year journey with a crew of six. He sailed in the converted herring boat Gjøa, which was 45 net register tonnage, or about 4,500 cubic feet. The ship was small and had a shallow draft, designed to navigate Arctic straits with shallow waters. Amundsen chose this approach to avoid the mistakes of past expeditions, like John Franklin’s, which failed due to large crews and poor planning. He intended to travel close to shore, surviving on what nature provided, and kept his crew small to make that possible.
Amundsen began his journey from Kristiania, now called Oslo, in June 1903. By late September he had reached the west side of the Boothia Peninsula. His ship, the Gjøa, entered a natural harbor on the south shore of King William Island, where it became trapped in ice by October. The crew stayed there for nearly two years, learning from the local Inuit and conducting measurements to locate the North Magnetic Pole. That harbor, now called Gjoa Haven, eventually became the only permanent settlement on the island.
After completing the Northwest Passage and dropping anchor near Herschel Island, Amundsen set off on skis for 800 kilometres, reaching Eagle, Alaska. There, he sent a telegram declaring his success before beginning the return journey on skis once more. His path, traveling east to west through the Rae Strait, was made possible by young ice, yet the waters were so shallow—just three feet deep—that the route could not be used for commerce.
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Knud Rasmussen completed the first dog-sled traversal of the Northwest Passage during the Fifth Thule Expedition, from 1921 to 1924, traveling from the Atlantic to the Pacific over 16 months. Then, Canadian Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer Henry Larsen became the second person to sail the passage, departing Vancouver on June 23, 1940, and reaching Halifax on October 11, 1942. His ship, St. Roch, was ice-fortified, but he often doubted whether it would survive the crushing sea ice. At one point, Larsen wondered “if we had come this far only to be crushed like a nut on a shoal and then buried by the ice.” The vessel and nearly all hands made it through the winter on Boothia Peninsula. Each member of the crew received a medal from King George VI for their Arctic navigation achievement.
In 1944, Larsen’s return journey was much faster than before, taking just 86 days to travel from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Vancouver, British Columbia. The ship, after being upgraded, followed a more northern path that was only partly mapped. Then in 1954, HMCS Labrador became the first warship—and the first deep-draft vessel—to sail through the Northwest Passage from east to west, under Captain O.C.S. Robertson, who also conducted hydrographic soundings along the way. The same ship made the trip again in 1956, this time under Captain T.C. Pullen.
On July 1, 1957, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Storis set out with two other vessels, the Bramble and the Spar, to find a deep-water route through the Arctic Ocean and gather hydrographic data. She was guided through Bellot Strait and into the Eastern Arctic by HMCS Labrador. After returning to Greenland waters, she became the first U.S.-registered ship to sail all the way around North America. Shortly after her return in late 1957, she was moved to Kodiak, Alaska. Then, in 1969, the SS Manhattan completed a passage supported by Canadian icebreakers John A. Macdonald and Louis S. St-Laurent, along with U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers Northwind and Staten Island.
In 1977, sailor Willy de Roos set out from Belgium in his steel yacht Williwaw, a 13.8-meter vessel, to try to sail through the Northwest Passage. He reached the Bering Strait in September, stopped in Victoria, British Columbia, and then sailed around Cape Horn before returning to Belgium, becoming the first person to complete a continuous ship voyage around the Americas. Meanwhile, the United States chose not to use the Arctic route for oil transport, even though a specially built supertanker named Manhattan had proven it was possible. The cost of using that path was too high, so they instead built the Alaska Pipeline.
In 1981, Ranulph Fiennes and Charles R. Burton completed the first open-boat transit of the Northwest Passage as part of the Transglobe Expedition. They departed Tuktoyaktuk on July 26 in a Boston Whaler and reached Tanquary Fiord on August 31. Their journey covered about 3,000 miles, traveling through Dolphin and Union Strait, around the south and east coasts of Devon Island, and across Norwegian Bay to Eureka and Greely Bay before heading into Tanquary Fiord. After reaching the fiord, they had to trek 150 miles via Lake Hazen to Alert before setting up their winter base camp. In 1984, the MV Explorer became the first cruise ship to navigate the passage.
In July 1986, Jeff MacInnis and Mike Beedell began a journey through the Northwest Passage aboard a 18-foot catamaran named Perception, sailing west to east across the Arctic for 100 days. They were the first to successfully navigate the passage, though they did so over the course of a couple of summers. Later that year, David Scott Cowper set out from England in a 12.8-meter lifeboat called Mabel El Holland. He spent three Arctic winters in the passage before reaching the Bering Strait in August 1989. He then continued his voyage around the world, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and returned to England on September 24, 1990. His was the first vessel to complete a global circumnavigation using the Northwest Passage.
On July 1, 2000, a vessel named Nadon, now known as St Roch II, departed Vancouver for a "Voyage of Rediscovery." She was retracing the route taken by her predecessor, St. Roch, traveling through the Northwest Passage and around North America via the Panama Canal. The 22,000-mile trip aimed to honor St. Roch’s legacy and raise funds for its preservation. Organized by the Vancouver Maritime Museum, the expedition received support from government agencies and corporate sponsors. Nadon, an aluminum catamaran-hulled patrol boat, was accompanied by the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Simon Fraser, which provided fuel, water, and ice escort during the journey.
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The Canadian government sees the Northwest Passage as internal waters, based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and how other archipelagos are drawn. That means Canada can block passage through these waters. The United States disagrees, calling them an international strait where foreign ships have the right to pass through. In that case, Canada could make rules about fishing, environment, taxes, smuggling, and shipping safety—but couldn’t shut the route. The U.S. hasn’t ratified the 1982 convention. The conflict began in 1969 when the American oil tanker SS Manhattan sailed through the Arctic Archipelago. That trip made Canada realize it needed to act. If the waters become ice-free in summer, they’ll attract huge supertankers that can't go through the Panama Canal and must otherwise sail around South America.
In 1985, the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Sea moved through Canadian Arctic waters from Greenland to Alaska, inspecting with the Canadian Coast Guard but provoking public anger in Canada and a diplomatic incident. The United States said it hadn't sought permission because it viewed the area as an international strait. Canada issued a declaration in 1986 reasserting its rights, which the U.S. refused to accept. A 1988 agreement named Arctic Cooperation settled how ships could pass through without resolving who owns the water. According to the law of the sea, vessels on transit cannot do research, but the pact stated that U.S. Coast Guard and Navy ships are always doing research and must request permission from Canada. Then, in late 2005, reports surfaced that U.S. nuclear submarines had traveled through Canadian waters without notice, violating the agreement. In his first news conference after the 2006 election, Prime Minister-designate Stephen Harper rejected the U.S. ambassador's claim that Arctic waters were international, declaring Canada would enforce its sovereignty. The issue flared again after the U.S. Navy released photographs of the USS Charlotte surfacing at the North Pole.
On April 9, 2006, Canada's Joint Task Force (North) declared the Canadian Forces would no longer call the region the Northwest Passage, but instead refer to it as Canadian Internal Waters. This followed the conclusion of Operation Nunalivut, an expedition involving five military patrols. A 2006 report from the Parliamentary Information and Research Service of Canada indicated that due to the September 11 attacks, the United States may have less interest in pursuing international waterways claims, prioritizing North American security instead. The assessment was based on a paper titled “The Northwest Passage Shipping Channel: Is Canada's Sovereignty Really Floating Away?” by Andrea Charron, presented at a 2004 Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute Symposium. Former U.S. Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci supported this view, although his successor, David Wilkins, stated that the passage was in international waters.
On July 9, 2007, Prime Minister Harper announced the creation of a deep-water port in the far North. In his press release, Harper stated, "Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic. We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this Government intends to use it. Because Canada's Arctic is central to our national identity as a northern nation. It is part of our history. And it represents the tremendous potential of our future." The very next day, July 10, Rear Admiral Timothy McGee of the U.S. Navy and Rear Admiral Brian Salerno of the U.S. Coast Guard said the United States would boost its Arctic patrol capabilities.
In June 2019, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department named Morgan Ortagus made a statement about the Northwest Passage. She said that the United States does not agree with Canada's claim that the waters there are internal waters of Canada. She stated this position was based on international law, even though there were historical precedents involving archipelago baselines that Canada had used to support its claim.
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In summer 2000, two Canadian ships successfully navigated through the Arctic Ocean thanks to the thinning ice cover. Scientists believe climate change is making the passage more open during warmer months, which could make it a major shipping route. But even with these changes, the Northwest Passage still needs a lot of investment in escort vessels and port facilities. It would also only work during certain times of the year. Because of this, it hasn't become a practical choice compared to the Panama Canal.
On September 14, 2007, the European Space Agency reported that ice loss had opened the Northwest Passage, which had historically been impossible to navigate. This marked a new low in satellite measurements dating back to 1978. The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment noted significant ice shrinkage during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. That year’s extreme loss made the route “fully navigable,” though the ESA study relied only on satellite images and could not confirm actual passage through the waters. The agency suggested the way might be open during periods of reduced ice cover by multi-year ice pack, unlike before when travel required favorable weather or special vessels. ESA speculated that conditions in 2007 indicated the passage could open earlier than expected. An expedition in May 2008 found it was not yet free of ice even for an icebreaker.
Scientists shared new data at a conference in December 2007, revealing that NASA satellites had observed the western Arctic during the summer of that year. The findings showed a 16% drop in cloud cover compared to 2006. This reduction meant more sunlight reached Earth’s atmosphere and warmed the Arctic Ocean waters, which led to melting sea ice and helped open the Northwest Passage.
Observations from more recent years show the stretch of time each year when ships can travel safely through the Arctic Ocean is getting shorter. The reason appears to be that thin sea ice is melting at a fast pace. As this happens, it allows thicker ice that has survived multiple winters to shift around and block navigation routes.
In 2006, the cruise ship MS Bremen made history by successfully navigating the Northwest Passage. Satellite images played a key role, showing where sea ice was thinning and movable. This allowed the vessel to find a path through what had long been considered impassable. The journey marked a turning point in how climate change was affecting Arctic routes. It also highlighted the growing accessibility of the region due to melting ice. The ship’s success came at a time when the Arctic was showing signs of rapid environmental shift. These changes were not only visible but also measurable, offering new possibilities for travel and trade. The Northwest Passage, once a dream for explorers, was now becoming a reality for modern vessels.
In September 2008, the MV Camilla Desgagnés, owned by Desgagnés Transarctik Inc. and part of Nunavut Sealift and Supply Incorporated (NSSI), carried cargo from Montreal to several Arctic hamlets including Cambridge Bay, Kugluktuk, Gjoa Haven, and Taloyoak. The Canadian Coast Guard confirmed the ship’s passage through the Northwest Passage on November 28 of that year. A crew member reportedly said, “There was no ice whatsoever.” Normally, sealift services the region annually, but this trip marked the first time western communities received supplies from the east. Typically, the western Arctic relies on Northern Transportation Company Limited (NTCL) from Hay River, while the eastern areas are served by NSSI and NTCL coming from Churchill and Montreal. Shipping from the east was scheduled to resume in the fall of 2009.
In January 2010, as Arctic sea ice continued to shrink, a telecoms cable specialist named Kodiak-Kenai Cable suggested laying a fibre-optic cable from London to Tokyo through the Northwest Passage. The company said this route would cut the time it takes to send messages between the UK and Japan by nearly half.
In 2016, the cruise ship Crystal Serenity made history by sailing through the Northwest Passage with 1,700 passengers and crew aboard, marking the largest such transit to date. Beginning on August 10, the vessel set out from Vancouver and traveled all the way to New York City, taking 28 days for the entire journey.
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Scientists believe that as sea ice has shrunk in the Northwest Passage, some species have been able to move across the Arctic Ocean. The gray whale Eschrichtius robustus, which was hunted to extinction in the North Atlantic by the 18th century, showed up again in May 2010 off the coast of the Mediterranean. Researchers think this whale may have followed its food sources through the Northwest Passage and continued traveling without stopping.
Neodenticula seminae is a plankton species that hadn’t been seen in the Atlantic for 800,000 years. Now it’s becoming more common there. Scientists think it traveled through the reopened Northwest Passage to get there.
In August 2010, two bowhead whales made their way through the Northwest Passage, one from West Greenland and the other from Alaska, traveling from opposite directions and meeting in the same region for about ten days.
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