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Northwest Passage

sea route north of North America

24 dated entries naming Northwest Passage, drawn from 19 separate years between 1534 CE and 1944 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

Also written as North-West Passage in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

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16th century

  • 1534May 10 – Jacques Cartier explores Newfoundland, while searching for the Northwest Passage.source
  • 1576August 11 – English navigator Martin Frobisher, on his search for the Northwest Passage through North America, enters the bay now named after him in Canada.source
  • 1585August 8 – English explorer John Davis enters Cumberland Sound in Baffin Island, in his quest for the Northwest Passage.source
  • 1587May 19 – John Davis sets out from Dartmouth, Devon, for a third attempt to find the Northwest Passage.source

17th century

  • 1610August 2 – Henry Hudson sails into what is now known as Hudson Bay, thinking he has made it through the Northwest Passage and reached the Pacific Ocean.source
  • 1616March 26–August 30 – English explorer William Baffin, as pilot to Robert Bylot on the Discovery, makes a detailed exploration of Baffin Bay, whilst searching for the Northwest Passage. The expedition also discovers Smith Sound, Lancaster Sound and Devon Island, and reaches latitude 77° 45' North, a record which holds for 236 years.source
  • 16199 May – King Christian IV sends out an expedition led by Jens Munk to find the North-West Passage. On board is also Rasmus Jensen, the first Lutheran cleric in Canada.source

18th century

  • 1728November 7 - James Cook killed by Hawaiian natives, cutting short his search for Northwest Passage. (died 1779)source
  • 1747June 24–October 14 – The English ships Dobbs galley and California, under Captains William Moore and Francis Smith, explore Hudson Bay, discovering there is no Northwest Passage by this route.source
  • 1778March 29 – April 26 British Captain James Cook explores Alaskan coast, seeking Northwest Passage back to the Atlantic. On the last of three voyages to the west coast, he travels as far north as the Bering Strait and claims Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island for the British. While there, he trades for sea otter pelts. On the way back to England his crew almost mutinied, desperately wanting to go back to the Pacific Northwest, after stopping in China and discovering how much sea otter pelts were worth.source
  • 1779February 14 – James Cook killed by Hawaiian natives, cutting short his search for Northwest Passage. (born 1728)source
  • 17911791–95 – British Captain George Vancouver explores Northwest Coast exhaustively with two ships, but finds no Northwest Passage.source

19th century

  • 1818April 18 – John Ross sets sail on his ship, the Isabella, in search of the Northwest Passage.source
  • 181818 April – John Ross sets sail from London on the Isabella on an Admiralty expedition to search for the Northwest Passage.source
  • 1819A British Arctic expedition under William Parry, comprising HMS Hecla and HMS Griper, reaches longitude 112°51' W in the Northwest Passage, the furthest west which will be attained by any single-season voyage for 150 years.source
  • 1819July 21 – Explorer William Parry, sailing in the Arctic in a quest for the Northwest Passage through North America, guides the ships HMS Hecla and HMS Griper through an iceberg-laden passage that will later be named the Parry Channel.source
  • 1845May 19 – HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, with 134 men, comprising Sir John Franklin's expedition to find the Northwest Passage, sail from Greenhithe on the Thames. They will last be seen in the summer, entering Baffin Bay.source
  • 184519 May – HMS Erebus and HMS Terror with 134 men, comprising Sir John Franklin's expedition to find the Northwest Passage, sail from Greenhithe on the Thames. They will last be seen in the summer entering Baffin Bay.source
  • 1845July 28 – HMS Terror and HMS Erebus of the Franklin Expedition go missing in the Davis Strait west of Greenland, while searching for the Northwest Passage.source

20th century

  • 1905August 26 – Near Point Barrow, Alaska, the crew of the Norwegian ship Gjoa, led by Roald Amundsen, make the breakthrough of finding the long-sought "Northwest Passage" from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.source
  • 1905August 26 – Roald Amundsen begins the first to travel through the Northwest Passagesource
  • 19064 September - The Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen completed a three-year voyage through the Northwest Passage in the converted herring boat Gjøa, after being trapped in ice for three winters.source
  • 1928May 7 – The St. Roch is launched. It would become the first ship to sail the Northwest Passage from west to east and to circumnavigate North America.source
  • 1944October 12 – Canadian Arctic explorer Henry Larsen returns to Vancouver, becoming the first person successfully to navigate the Northwest Passage in both directions, in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner St. Roch ship. His westbound voyage is the first completed in a single season, and the first passage through the Prince of Wales Strait.source

Named in the same entries