Posted on 10/20/2025 1:20:27 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The Inuit of the far north helped solve the mystery of a doomed 19th-century expedition. Now Canada needs them to strengthen its claim to this newly contested region.
For centuries, death and disaster met those searching for the fabled Northwest Passage. The promise of a shorter sea lane between Europe and Asia, somewhere through the icelocked labyrinth of Canada’s Arctic Archipelago, lured explorers like Sir John Franklin to their doom.
Today, with sea ice melting fast, the Northwest Passage is open long enough to welcome thousands of tourists annually aboard large cruise ships. Nine are expected to dock this year at Gjoa Haven, an Inuit hamlet whose history is tied to the passage’s past and could help secure its future.
“The Northwest Passage goes through our communities, our land,” said Raymond Quqshuun, Gjoa Haven’s mayor.
A Northwest Passage navigable several months a year is one of the warming Arctic’s biggest prizes — and potential sources of conflict. The United States and several other nations reject Canada’s claim of sovereignty over the Northwest Passage and consider it an international waterway, even though it traverses Nunavut, a vast Canadian territory home to Gjoa Haven and two dozen other sparsely populated Inuit hamlets.
As global warming makes the Arctic — and its immense natural resources — more accessible, it is fueling a superpower rivalry not seen since the Cold War. Russia is beefing up its military positions in the region, sometimes in cooperation with China, a self-described “near-Arctic state” that is also expanding commercial and scientific activities.
President Trump is threatening to annex Canada and force a sale of Greenland. He wants to build a $175 billion “Golden Dome” defense shield to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles flying over the Arctic.
Canada is rushing to avoid becoming a...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
B s
Canada is unable to wipe its A$$, let alone defend its frontier.
If the ice in the Arctic melted it would be so hot at the Equator evaporation would be insane and create tons of clouds that would cool the planet a make ice form at the arctic ,LOL
So, the NYT doesn’t bother looking at the REAL pics of the Artic ice coverage, eh? Oh, forgot, they have journalism degrees...those things that are rated just below degrees in underwater Transvestite dance.
I heard Algore is in the Arctic fanning the Polar bears to keep them cool and supplying them with rubber rafts so they can move around
No snow, no ice.....uh, okay. Bring back Pangea!.
Isn’t the truth that there is no warming and ice acreage is at an all time high?
120 years ago, an older but close friend’s Norwegian father-in-law traded goods and hardware along the north Coast of Russian. They sailed out of Nome with goods and wares for trade at the small villages and towns that dot that coast. They went almost as far as Severny Island in the Kara Sea.
That was before so-called “Global Warming” was eve invented by Al Gore.
(During the Revolution, he and his partner were picking up a boat load of White Russians when they were captured by the Bolsheviks and taken and imprisoned inland several hundred miles. Their escape was epic.)
Canada is unable to wipe its A$$, let alone defend its frontier.
That comment was so good, I had to repeat it.
It has long been a “common belief” that shipping through Canada’s Northwest Passage would become “more viable” with a warming Arctic and a consequent reduction in sea ice impediments.
however.
The East Beaufort Sea has increasingly been generating sea ice “choke points” that have reduced the length of the shipping season from 27 weeks (half the year) during 2007-2011 down to 13 weeks (summer only) during 2017-2021. And, as scientists are now warning, “the negative trend [in shipping season length] shows no sign of reversing.”
To clarify, I believe global warming is going on naturally within 2 of the 3 warming and cooling cycles that seem to be happening simultaneously (Milankovitch cycles).
1) While the earth has been in a general warming part of an ice age cycle for the past million years or so:
2) We've pretty much topped out on a warming glacial-interglacial cycle that started 20,000 or so years ago and may be cooling a bit (the below graph is a zoom into the above graph's right end):
3) All while we're warming during the Modern Warm Period that's been going on for a century and a half or two centuries (again the below graph is like a zooming into the middle-graph's far right edge):
I have followed several attempts to transverse the “North West Passage”. One was a canoe expedition. I forgot how that ended but they didn’t make it 1/2 way. Another was a sail boat rigged out for the trip. They got stuck in the ice in a polar bear hunting ground and were rescued by a Russian Ice breaker.
There was a Russian canoe expedition in the 1600s that went all the way across Siberia to the Bering Sea, then they went back. There is a band of about 1 mile of open water from the shore all the way across the Arctic.
In the 1817, a British expediton looking for the NW Passage sailed almost all the way through in ice free waters. They turned back when the Captain declaired he saw mountains across his path, but, it’s thought he just chickened out.
In the 1850s, when the Brits were still looking for Franklin, they have 5 or 6 groups searching on the norhtern edges of the Canadia Archipelago. Pretty much between the land at the Artic Ice Sheet. The Arctic is an ever changing landscape.
His momma didn't raise stupid children.
Using ice breakers, some nuclear powered ships are using the Northeast Passage leaving Russia and coming down the Bearing sea to various ports in Asia. I believe I read it cuts voyage distances by 7000 miles.
Using ice breakers, some nuclear powered ships are using the Northeast Passage leaving Russia and coming down the Bearing sea to various ports in Asia. I believe I read it cuts voyage distances by 7000 miles.
New York Times.
😝
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