Climate Change in the Arctic - The Changing Arctic Environment: The Arctic Messenger - page 228

10 Climate Change in the Arctic
“There in the north where ice, water and air mingle is, without doubt, the end of the
earth. There I have seen the lung of the sea.”
Pytheas, fourth century BCE
Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Great Powers were obsessed with discovering whether
ships could pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific and vice versa through or north of North
America. In pursuit of this obsession, many ships and lives were lost in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Included were the entire crew of the famous Franklin expedition that
sailed into oblivion in 1845. It was the unsuccessful search for Franklin, launched from the
Atlantic and the Pacific, that essentially led to the discovery and mapping of the Northw-
est Passage, but it was not until 1906 that a ship managed a complete transit. That honour
went to the Norwegian Roald Amundsen in the little sloop Gjöa . His three-year voyage was
completed in 1906, but the lesson learned was that even at the most favourable time of year,
the passage had no commercial potential. As late as the 1970s, a transit could only be at-
tempted by a heavy icebreaker in late summer or with the constant assistance of one or more
icebreakers (as was the case with the experimental transit made by the tanker SS Manhat-
tan in 1969). The single exception came when nuclear submarines began to patrol the Arctic
Ocean.
You can imagine my excitement when, in September 1979, I sailed to the Northwest
Passage on the maiden voyage of the icebreaker Kigoriak . Its design owed much to features
developed in Finland that were quite revolutionary for Canada. It was built on the Atlantic
coastinNewBrunswickbutwastooperateintheBeaufortSea.Atexactly thesametimebut
coming in the other direction was the more traditionally designed Sir John Franklin - also
on its maiden voyage. Impassable multiyear ice blocked the M'Clure Strait and choked the
upper part of the Prince of Wales Strait between the Banks and Victoria islands. Travelling
on an icebreaker in heavy ice is quite an experience. Depending on where your cabin is, the
noise can make youfeel youare in a steel barrel being rolled downan uneven flight ofstairs.
It is impossible to predict the motion of the ship. Icebreakers do not cut their way through