- published: 18 Apr 2009
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The Northwest Passage is a sea route connecting the northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The various islands of the archipelago are separated from one another and from the Canadian mainland by a series of Arctic waterways collectively known as the Northwest Passages or Northwestern Passages. The Parliament of Canada renamed these waterways the "Canadian Northwest Passage" in a motion that was passed unanimously in December 2009.
Sought by explorers for centuries as a possible trade route, it was discovered in 1850 by Robert McClure and first navigated by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen with a small expedition in 1903–1906. Until 2009, the Arctic pack ice prevented regular marine shipping throughout most of the year. Changes in the pack ice (Arctic shrinkage) has rendered the waterways more navigable.
The contested sovereignty claims over the waters may complicate future shipping through the region: the Canadian government considers the Northwestern Passages part of Canadian Internal Waters, but the United States and various European countries maintain they are an international strait and transit passage, allowing free and unencumbered passage. If, as has been claimed, parts of the eastern end of the Passage are barely 15 metres (49 ft) deep, the route's viability as a Euro-Asian shipping route is reduced.
Stan Rogers - Northwest Passage
Stan Rogers: Northwest Passage (1981)
Buried In Ice: The Franklin Expedition
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Nathan Rogers doing "Northwest Passage" with Dry Bones
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Sailing the Northwest Passage
SMUGGLERS ~ NORTH - WEST PASSAGE
Northwest Passage (Stan Rogers) - The Water Boys (A Cappella Cover)
Luxury cruise ship sets sail for unprecedented Arctic Northwest Passage
Northwest Passage
(Stan Rogers)
cho: Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wide and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died;
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.
Three centuries thereafter, I take passage overland
In the footsteps of brave Kelso, where his "sea of flowers" began
Watching cities rise before me, then behind me sink again
This tardiest explorer, driving hard across the plain.
And through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking west
I think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the rest
Who cracked the mountain ramparts and it did give me a humping streak
To race the roaring Fraser to the sea.
How then am I so different from the first men through this way?
Like them, I left a settled life, I threw it all away.
To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men
To find there but the road back home again.
Copyright Fogarty's Cove Music, Inc.
see also JUSTDIME, NEPASSAGE
filename[ NWPASS