The key to the search for the Northwest Passage was the economic stimulus to find the shortest route to China from Europe.
Due to a combination of economic and social changes in the latter 1400s an economic boom occurred in Europe. There was an active trade not only among principalities and new nations, but among regions as well. The most lucrative of these regions was China, always an attraction because of its fine exports and sophisticated elite anxious to purchase Western goods. There was a particular demand for fine and unusual pelts of fur. The Chinese did not have fires for warmth in the winter, the only way to keep warm was to wrap. The elite wore fur, the commoner wore cotton, the West sold both.
China had traded with the West since Rome sought its exotic exports in the first century B.C. A well-trodden Silk Road brought spices, jewels, silk, and fine furniture. The Roman elite, and eventually the elite of the entire Western world, were anxious to purchase specialties. China stopped selling exports to Southeast Asia and the West in 1435. Revolution over high taxation was translated by imperial advisors as caused by new ideas coming from international trade.
Instead China decided to sell its exports from India. Not until 1803 did China agree to broaden trade on its own shores. A new problem arose for the West. The traditional Silk Road, running from China to the Mediterranean Sea, was long, slow, and difficult because of the terrain, the Crusades and animosity with Middle Eastern Muslims.
The solution was to find a sea route to India. Spain and Portugal had been the leaders in new navigational design and technology. It was they who had been controlled by Muslim Moors. The locals picked up the navigational theories and technology developed throughout the Middle East. Others in Europe followed quickly,
When Christopher Columbus sailed from Spanish shores, he did so in the belief he knew a faster way to India across the Atlantic not around Africa. He was wrong. What he did find was the Americas. Although he sailed around Hispaniola (currently Haiti and the Dominican Republic) he claimed all the land for Spain. Ultimately Spain controlled the western half of South America, the Caribbean Sea, Central America, Mexico, the land from Florida through Texas to the northern edge of California and everything in between.
Immediately luxury items streamed into Spain, then the rest of Europe. Unusual furs, gold, silver, emeralds, cocoa, tobacco for the elites. Potatoes, squash, beans, tomatoes were sold to the commoners, diminishing the chance of starvation. Spain immediately turned that income from taxation on these items into the strongest navy in the world.
The other leaders of Europe decided to do the same thing. They explored, took new land, sold the special products found there to the rest of the world to acquire riches, then turn that money into a top-notch military. And so the race was on.
To sail to China, a prime market for many of these items, it would be advantageous to find a faster route across the oceans. Everyone agreed there must be a waterway in North America that united the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Spain and Portugal called that waterway the Straight of Anian and searched along Baja California and Alta California to no avail.
The rest of Europe referred to it as the Northwest Passage. John Cabot, in 1497, claimed a long narrow strip of land along the Atlantic coastline for England. Henry VII (1485-1507) asked him to find the passage, but he could not. His son, Sabastian Cabot, in 1503, also found nothing. Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608. French explorers examined the land from the Appalachian hills to the Rocky Mountains for the passage. Henry Hudson, 1609, discovered the Hudson River on behalf of Holland.
Vasco da Gama found a water route around the Horn of Africa to India in 1498. That didn’t stop the searches in North America. In 1806, the exploration team of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returned from what would become the American Northwest. They were unable to find the waterway. Jefferson’s, and America’s, hope for a commercial advantage with faster access to China was dashed.
The United States ended its search for the waterway but Great Britain did not. It continued to encourage search in Canada. Robert McClure found the Northwest Passage in 1850-1854. It was much further north than explorers have thought, in fact, above the Arctic Circle. There were several other attempts to cross over it through the rest of the nineteenth century. The first completed voyage across the Northwest Passage was by Ronald Amundson in 1903-1906. This obviously was not an easy journey, dodging icebergs and dealing with terrible weather, but it was doable.
In the 1950s Arctic ice began to melt. Since the 1970s the recession of thin summer ice made possible the idea of commercial use for the passage. An American oil tanker, the Manhattan, made it through to the East Coast with the help of an icebreaker in 1968. In 2013 a Danish ship, the Nordic Orion, a commercial carrier, made the voyage. Owners estimated it saved $80,000 in fuel costs and several days travel by short-cutting the Panama Canal. If used, the Northwest Passage would save approximately 4,000 miles for ships between Europe and Asia.
The Arctic is an area stretching over eight nations: the United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark (Greenland), Iceland, Norway, and Finland. The Northwest Passage winds through Canada but the entrance from the Atlantic is through Finland, the exit into the Pacific is through the Bering Sea lined by the United States and Russia.
If the ice-melt continues to open the Northwest Passage to commerce, undoubtedly all eight nations will be involved in determining Passage regulations. Already there is a conflict between the United States and the other boarder nations and Canada. Led by the United States, the joint owners maintain since the passage is a connecting waterway, it is part of the international waters and falls under the Law of the Seas. Canada argues the majority of it passes through its northern land and is Canada’s to regulate. The argument is on a low flame for now.
But there are other factors that can make the flame burn hotter. The United States Geogeological Survey, (USGS ), estimates almost one-fourth of the earth’s oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids may be found in the Arctic and, particularly in the continental shelf. Valuable minerals, such as nickel and zinc, are to be found as more land is exposed in the ice melt. In addition, military interests are peaking among a number of the Arctic landowners.
The 2011 U.S. Department of Defense “Report to Congress on Arctic Operations and the Northwest Passage. “ It emphasizes that if the Arctic ice continues to melt, further opening the Northwest Passage to commerce, the U.S. must establish a naval presence in the waters. Our weather analysis must be much improved. A deep-water port would need to be built in Alaska. American national interests are at stake.
Control of the Arctic is under the eight landowners and the indigenous peoples of the area. They have formed the Arctic Counsel. It is a voluntary association committed to environmental concerns. As an indication of the growing importance of the Northwest Passage, in 2013 China, India, Italy, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea became Arctic Council observer states.The International Arctic Science Committee has a membership of nineteen members. It is a non-governmental, (NGO), association to organize research.
At this point, cooperation among nations has been the common bond. There is no reason to assume the cooperation will not continue.
The Northwest Passage has been a long time in coming. After 500 years, it’s here!
-End-
Sources:
Department of Defense. (May, 2011) Report to Congress on Arctic Operations and the Northwest Passage. http://www.defense.gov/…/Tab_A_Arctic.
“The Melting North.” The Economist. http://www.economist.com/node/21556798.
Encyclopedia Britannica. “Northwest Passage.” Britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/420084/Northwest-Passage.
Foner, Eric. Give Me liberty, An American History, Vol. I to 1877, 3rd edition Chapters 1, 2, and 8. W.W. Norton & Co.: New York, 2011.
Masters, Jonathan. “The Thawing Arctic: Risks and Opportunities.” Backgrounders, The Council on Foreign Relations. Dec.16, 2013. http://www.cfr.org/arctic/thawing/risks/opportunities/p32082.
“Northwest Passage.” How Stuff Works. Howstuffworks.com.
United States Geological Survey. (2008) “Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal: Estimates of Undiscovered Oil and Gas North of the Arctic Circle.” Pubs.usgs.gov/…/2008/3049/fs2008-304.
Maps:
National Snow and Ice Center. “What is the Arctic? ”https//:nsidc.org/…/arctic…/arctic.html.
Copywrite 2015 Janet Newlan Bower
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