Editing Northwest Passage (section)

===Early expeditions===
[[File:Chart of the World showing New Route through Canada between England, China, Japan, Australasia and the East. By J. Johnston. Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, Canada, 1886 CTASC.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Chart of the World showing New Route (the [[Canadian Pacific Railway]]) through Canada between England, China, Japan, Australasia and the East (1886)]]
Before the [[Little Ice Age]] (late Middle Ages to the 19th century), [[Norwegian people|Norwegian]] [[Vikings]] sailed as far north and west as [[Ellesmere Island]], [[Skraeling Island]] and [[Ruin Island]] for hunting expeditions and trading with the [[Inuit]] and people of the [[Dorset culture]] who inhabited the region.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Schledermann|first1=P.|last2=McCullough|first2=K.M.|editor=James Harold Barrett|title=Contact, Continuity, and Collapse: The Norse Colonization of the North Atlantic|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3QFpAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP1|year=2003|publisher=Brepols|isbn=978-2-503-51291-4|pages=183–205|chapter=Inuit-Norse Contact in the Smith Sound Region|doi=10.1484/M.SEM-EB.3.3836}}</ref> Between the end of the 15th century and the 20th century, [[colonial powers]] from Europe dispatched explorers to discover a commercial sea route north and west around North America. The Northwest Passage represented a new route to the established trading nations of Asia.

England called the hypothetical northern route the "Northwest Passage". The desire to establish such a route motivated much of the European exploration of both coasts of North America, also known as the New World. When it became apparent that there was no route through the heart of the continent, attention turned to the possibility of a passage through northern waters. There was a lack of scientific knowledge about conditions; for instance, some people believed that [[seawater]] was incapable of freezing. (As late as the mid-18th century, Captain [[James Cook]] had reported that [[Antarctica|Antarctic]] [[iceberg]]s had yielded fresh water, seemingly confirming the hypothesis.) Explorers thought that an [[Open Polar Sea]] close to the North Pole must exist.<ref name="cook" /> The belief that a route lay to the far north persisted for several centuries and led to numerous expeditions into the Arctic. Many ended in disaster, including that by Sir [[John Franklin]] in 1845. While searching for him the [[McClure Arctic Expedition]] discovered the Northwest Passage in 1850.

In 1906, the Norwegian explorer [[Roald Amundsen]] was the first to complete the passage solely by ship, from [[Greenland]] to [[Alaska]] in the [[sloop]] {{ship||Gjøa}}.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mills|first=William James|title=Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PYdBH4dOOM4C&pg=PA13|volume=1, A-L|year=2003|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-57607-422-0|page=13}}</ref> Since that date, several fortified ships have made the journey.

From east to west, the direction of most early exploration attempts, expeditions entered the passage from the Atlantic Ocean via the [[Davis Strait]] and through [[Baffin Bay]], both of which are in Canada. Five to seven routes have been taken through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, via the [[McClure Strait]], [[Dease Strait]], and the [[Prince of Wales Strait]], but not all of them are suitable for larger ships.<ref name="paprl1"/><ref name="Charron">{{cite journal |first=Andrea |last=Charron |title=The Northwest Passage Shipping Channel: Is Canada's Sovereignty Really Floating Away? |journal=[[Canadian International Council|International Journal]] |volume=60|issue=3, Canada in the World: Annual John W. Holmes Issue on Canadian Foreign Policy |pages=831–848 |date=Summer 2005 |doi=10.2307/40204066 |url=http://www.cdfai.org/PDF/Charron,%20Andrea-Paper.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130413234114/http://cdfai.org/PDF/Charron%2C%20Andrea-Paper.pdf |archive-date=April 13, 2013|jstor=40204066 }}</ref> From there ships passed through westward through the [[Beaufort Sea]] and the [[Chukchi Sea]], and then southwards through the [[Bering Strait]] (separating Russia and Alaska), into the Pacific Ocean.