Global trade really opened up during the Age of Exploration, but it was an awfully long journey between oceans when you had to sail around the southern tips of Africa or South America and your trading partners were in the Northern Hemisphere. It would be a far shorter trip through the Arctic Ocean, but how? The fabled Northwest Passage was filled with icebergs and unmapped islands and the sea was frozen most of the year anyway. But intrepid explorers spent 300 years looking for that route, with expedition after expedition turning back or becoming stranded. Many died in the search.
The first to successfully find a way around northern Canada and map the Northwest Passage was Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, better known as the first man to reach the South Pole. He accomplished this by using a much smaller ship and crew than previous expeditions. The tiny Gjøa was a 30-year-old fishing boat that was only 70 feet long. Amundsen selected only six men for his crew. The expedition set off from Norway in 1903. The ship was indeed icebound twice on the journey, once for almost two years, but the intact ship and crew reached Nome, Alaska, in 1906 and eventually continued on to San Francisco. Read how the Gjøa and crew survived and claimed a new trade route at Amusing Planet.
(Image credit: Michael Spiller)
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