Talk:Northwest Passage

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An event mentioned in this article is an August 8 selected anniversary

From the article: "The Spanish called it the ." This sentence was added in the most recent revision, 05:11, 5 Mar 2004, by Decumanus, but it is incomplete. What did the Spanish call it? Edward 10:38, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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[edit] Melting Arctic ice risks Canada-US territorial dispute

There was this news report on Yahoo! News today Melting Arctic ice risks Canada-US territorial dispute. It looks like there are a number of items in the article that should be incorporated into the Wikipedia article, but I don't know enough about the Northwest Passage to know what's worth including and what's just trivia. BlankVerse 11:34, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] US Subs

The article as currently written contains the following sentence:

"In late 2005, it was revealed that U.S. nuclear submarines had been traveling the passage without Canadian approval, sparking Canadian outrage."

A Google news search turns up no conclusive 2005 reports of US submarines in waters claimed by Canada. Canadian media did report a U.S. nuclear submarine surfaced near the North Pole in late 2005 on a trip between oceans; these reports claimed it therefore likely transited Canadian waters to get there.

This was then used in later articles to allege US submarines were using the Northwest Passage. Since the Northwest Passage runs east-west, not north-south, it would not be used as a route to the North Pole. A submarine transiting the Passage would go nowhere near the Pole.

I think it's unlikely that U.S. nuclear submarines would use the Northwest Passage as a shortcut between the Altantic and Pacific Oceans. It's more likely that they transit up the east coast of Greenland and then around the top of Greenland before heading across to the Bering Strait. Although this route is approximately 1000 miles longer, it's all in deep water without obstacles until a submarine nears the Bering Strait. That would allow a nuclear submarine to transit the Arctic Ocean at maximum speed. Such a transit would also pass close to the North Pole. At no time would a submarine on this route pass anywhere near waters claimed by Canada.

The Northwest Passage is shallow and contains islands. Because of the inherent uncertainties associated with navigating underwater without external references, standard submarine doctrine requires using slow speeds when moving through shallow confined waters. This becomes even trickier when the submarine has to worry about avoiding ice projections from above. The requirement to travel slowly for 800 to 900 miles through the Passage would more than offset the distance reduction, so it is more likely that American submarines are taking the faster, longer, safer route around Greenland.
References:

--A. B. 01:04, 9 June 2006 (UTC) (originally posted 31 Jan 2006, then later reformatted 8 June)

Not sure about that statement in the article either, I don't recall hearing about a specific incident in 2005. However, in early 2005, some Canadian media suggested that "foreign nuclear Submarines" (they could be American, British, Russian, etc) had been seen in (claimed) internal waters over some of the past several summers by some local Inuit residents. It appeared to be all eye witness reports with no actual hard evidence. In particular, I recall there was a CBC documentary that aired around January-March of 2005 on "Artic Sovereignty "(around the same time as the Hans expedition), it was probably replayed a few times throughout the year. I can't find any web sources that mention it though.Kilrogg 22:30, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Here's a graphic to illustrate the point: Bathymetric image of the Arctic Ocean. (Warning: this graphic is about 15 MB.) This graphic shows extensive shoaling for any submerged transit of the Northwest Passage; by contrast, note that a submarine transiting to the Pacific from the east side of Greenland has a wide open, straight shot under the North Pole for a very high speed transit. Submariners loathe submerged, near-blind navigation in shallow waters -- especially when they're closely confined on either side by land.
It's impossible to say that there was a submarine in the Passage just prior to the Canadian elections unless someone saw or heard it. An underwater acoustic array such as the U.S.'s old SOSUS system would allow the Canadian military to very cost-effectively monitor any submarine activity in the Northwest Passage.--A. B. 01:04, 9 June 2006 (UTC) (originally posted 10 May, 2006, then later reformatted 8 June)

[edit] US Subs (further comment, Jan '07)

The article currently still asserts:

"In late 2005, it was alleged that U.S. nuclear submarines had travelled the passage without Canadian approval, sparking Canadian outrage."

even though User:A. B. appears to question it above. This statement should have a reference provided in the article itself, or it should be removed. The only thing that seems obvious is that the U.S. Navy released pictures showing USS Charlotte at the North Pole. In particular, the sentence I quoted contains weasel wording, because it doesn't say who did the alleging. I tried to work my way through the extensive references provided by A. B. here on the Talk page but couldn't find anything to confirm the exact sentence I quote above. (At least one link no longer works). Nobody seems to actually believe that the Charlotte would have bothered to traverse the N.W. Passage to make this trip, so it remains unclear who did the alleging, and why anyone would believe that. Perhaps they are concerned with some other corner of Canadian waters that the ship might have passed through, but there's nowhere near enough detail here to go into that question. EdJohnston 20:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
There was a big hullabaloo in the Canadian press prior to the national elections. Candidates promised to make sure this wouldn't happen on their watch. I don't remember the details, but it seems that "might have" quickly got turned into "did". Even "might have" was absurd in my view.--A. B. (talk) 21:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Our views seem similar, but there is still no citation of the toned-down claim. "It was revealed" became "It was alleged", but alleged by whom? The article doesn't say. Controversial claims require a citation. EdJohnston 21:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
See the article's existing external links. Here's another one as well: "Conservative Leader Harper Asserts Canada’s Arctic Claims", Michel Comte, Agence France-Presse, in DefenseNews.com
I think the allegations should stay since they were part of an election even thought they were ill-founded. I think we should address the issue. I also think it's important to lay out the facts on the other side and let the reader draw his/her own conclusion -- that no submarine CO would want to make a treacherous journey on torturous goat path when a much safer, faster high speed freeway is available right under the pole.
This American submarine intrusion story reappears periodically in the Canadian zeitgeist -- it will come around again unless folks understand it's very unlikely American subs would go there.
Of course U.S defense planners have long been concerned about Canadians' lack of sea and land defenses in the north, especially for ASW. It's a great place to quietly park a ballistic missile submarine for a short-range, short-warning, down-the-throat missile salvo. The U.S. would probably love to see the Canadians invest in an acoustical network in the Arctic. Maybe this is all just the Americans' plot to get the Canadians to beef up their arctic naval presence. (That, or Cheney will subcontract ASW out to the Danish force at Hans Island)
I think a sub or two did go through the passage in the 1950s, but that was for PR purposes: "Navy nuke subs set still another historic record" and unlikely to be repeated. --A. B. (talk) 03:34, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I could never find the original source of the allegation. I suspect the press alleged and Ottawa reacted -- rather than vice versa. One day, it was just in a bunch of articles -- probably precipitated by the U.S. press release on the Charlotte's surfacing at the pole. Perhaps the current wording:
  • "In late 2005, it was alleged that U.S. nuclear submarines had travelled the passage without Canadian approval, sparking Canadian outrage."
should be changed to something like:
  • "In late 2005, Canadian news media carried unattributed allegations that U.S. nuclear submarines had travelled the passage without Canadian approval; these reports sparked Canadian outrage."
--A. B. (talk) 03:49, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I couldn't find any references in the article that spoke about where the US sub had specifically gone. Your Defence News article is the only thing there currently, and all it says is:

Conservative leader Stephen Harper said Dec. 22 he would assert more strongly Canada’s northern territorial claims following reports that a U.S. submarine recently traveled unannounced through Canadian Arctic waters.

which seems more believable than Wikipedia's current wording, which appears to insist that there were allegations that a US sub went through the NW Passage. I understand that some newspaper might have asserted something stronger, but I don't think we ought to repeat it unless we can find the original. EdJohnston 05:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Ed, go for it. I'm a bit Northwest Passaged out. Thanks for your attention to this. --A. B. (talk) 06:14, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lead Poisoning

This article presents the lead poisoning theory as verified fact. From what I've read, a lot of scholars actually disagree with it - has anyone got any firm information on it? --220.233.32.18 01:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Atlantic-centric title ?

Isn't the title Atlantic-centric? Wouldn't the Japanese call this passage the Northeast Passage? A bit like Eurocentrism when using the term "Middle East".Frednofr 11:40, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any Japanese attempts to reach the Atlantic ocean via a "North Eastern passage". This is about Euopean attempts to navigate to the Far East, by taking a a north-westerly route. Commonly known as the "Northwest Passage". What else would you have the article called? Jooler 11:57, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


Our Hemishere is designated WEST. The passages are at the extreme SOUTH and NORTH. That is why they are refered to as the Southwest Passage and the Northwest Passage. Remember, the eropeans were the ones doing all the exploring of this hemishere at the time.
BTW -- The 1969 SS Manhattan passage and the Alaska Pipeline decision. I remember that event. I did a report (extra credit) in my 4th grade Social Studies class when I read about it in the newspaper. It was a BIG full page article -- and we were actually covering the discovery of the Southwest passage in class at the time. Also. Popular Mechanics did a study article about how the problem could have been aproached. The cover featured a Icebreaker-tanker-submarine. -- Jason Palpatine 05:20, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Out of curiosity: I'm not familiar with the term "Southwest Passage". Does this refer to one of the more southerly routes through the Canadian Arctic islands? Or is it a name for the Atlantic-Pacific passage at the end of South America -- either the trip around Cape Horn (the Drake Passage) or the channel north of Tierra del Fuego (the Strait of Magellan)?--A. B. 18:41, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
A map of the Southwest Passage.
A map of the Southwest Passage.
When I was in school, it was the term used to describe the navigable route immediately south of mainland South America discovered in in 1520 by Ferdinand Magellan during his global circumnavigation voyage. Today called The Drake Passage or more commonly known as the Strait of Magellan. I just grew up in a different era. Check my userpage; it says "This user remembers using a rotary dial telephone." Showing my age. Sorry if I confused you. -- Jason Palpatine 23:44, 1 July 2006 (UTC) (speak your mind | contributions)
Thanks. And yes, I also used a rotary dial phone -- for 2-3 decades. (Today, I just had another birthday -- this one ended in '0')
--A. B. 00:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, the Drake Passage and the Strait of Magellan aren't the same thing: the first is the passage between Antarctica and the southernmost island of South America, while the other one goes runs between the mainland South America and the islands south of it. ikh (talk) 12:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations needed

The article as presently written reads:

"Some believe the real purpose of the voyages of discovery was not to patrol the Arctic searching for evidence of German infiltrators, but rather to protect Canadian interests from her American allies. The Americans were proving to be difficult, heavy-handed allies."

This needs some sort of reference, especially since the second sentence is not neutral POV. The reference can just go in the edit summary or the talk page. The second sentence is less POV if it quotes a "notable" source -- something like "Prime Minister John Doe was later quotes ad saying the Americans were proving to be difficult, heavy-handed allies." In that case, a notable figure or publication is expressing an opinion, not Wikipedia.--A. B. 14:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I've removed that until a citation is found... does seem to be quite POVish. I will not oppose its reinstatement if, as A.B. said, a "notable" source for it is found; until then I'd say that it does not belong in an encyclopedia. ikh (talk) 12:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Get it straight

It's a strait, not a straight. Unless it's a straight strait. If this goes on, I'll need a straightjacket. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) Clarityfiend 19:22, 26 August 2006 (UTC) yea what ever you are !! ??

[edit] The Legendary Northwest Passage?

Came to mind while listening to the CBC blather/national bluster on about the Passage and arctic sovereignty on the National briefly tonight, it came to mind to look up the Northwest Passage to see what was here on the legendary history of the Passage, and also the search for it that is the core of the European intrusion upon the Pacific Northwest in the late 18th Century. There's ancillary articles like the fictional-map makers/captains de Fonte and Maldonado and others, who claim to have discovered it; and the combination of De Fuca and Vancouver and Quadra and others who established (to the outside world) that there was a wide straight through the mountains at the latitude the stories alluded to, but it did not lead through the continent. There's a lot of material; for those unfamiliar here's a summary; kind of notes for later for myself too but if someone else cares to condense it or follow up the sources please go ahead, particularly on the maps as neither of my scanners is working.

The lore of the passage, in lore known as the Straits of Anian - and there's also a reference to an inland Great Western Sea open to the ocean, although some believe that may have been a pre-sedimentation Central Valley in California, or a moist-era myth of Great Salt Lake when it was larger and fresh, or even when parts of the Interior of Washington and BC were a post-glacial lake (oral traditions have staying power, remember, as can be shown in Northwest culture-mythology re glacial/coastal/volcanic history and more). But where the Straits of Anian were said to be, and largely where they were placed - between 45 and 60 latitude, ruling out any connection to the other Northwest Passage, the one this article about - which also may have been traversed by captains and others who did not keep logs, as climatic shift history is starting to show us (and as Farley Mowat has maintained in his book West-Viking and others since I think...); both routes led to the Pacific, or one of them in and then out of it, twice no less (north and south of the open waters on one stretch of the Inside Passage. A thorough source this page can draw public-domain materials from (I'm not sure which are copyrighted, as the book is full of hundreds of plates) is Derek Hayes' Historical Atlas of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest Cavendish Books (I think), Vancouver), but I don't have a working scanner so if anyone's interested and it's in the library, it's rich with old maps of the mythical passage, and also some of the other Arctic expeditions despite the focus on mapping of the Northwest Coast in particular, because of their speculative maps showing what they thought, or heard, was to westward; so the two legends became connected, and one was true, provided the climate was warm enough to allow passage, while the other wasn't quite right.

The legends allusion to latitude at that latitude and the vague but familiar descriptions of the lands of Anian and Bergi (Bergi was mountainous and populated and lay beyond the Straits of Anian, which flanked the legendary strait and was a land rich in people and great wealth, furs, pearl (abalone?), gold and jade (!! - I'll have to dig that out but I've seen it in print somewhere). The overall length of today's Inside Passage, from the open sea northwards (not from the southern end of Puget Sound or Elliott Bay, where Seattle is, but along the route from open sea to open sea, Puget Sound being a sidewater essentially.

Through the coastal archipelago from the 47th Parallel or so (Olympia is to the south of Cape Flattery but it's from Port Townsend-Anacortes north that counts as far as the passage goes, variously to Skagway although in strict sense it could simply be the Juan de Fuca-San Juans/Gulf Islands straits-northern Puget Sound/Gulf of Georgia-Johnstone Strait-Queen Charlotte Strait; in a sense the passage from Fitz Hugh Sound north - where the Dean Channel from Bentinck Arm/Bella Coola comes out, just up a bit is Gil Island of the recent Queen of the North sinking - and then up Grenville Channel inside of Princess Royal Island - as mountainous and rugged as Vancouver Island, but not as high, and vast and maze-like in its valleys (I know I've studied the maps for a large project a few years in length for all of BC and the Northwest...).

This was notes and explanation why I'm asking if this should be here, or in a separate article with some kind of related title and mutually linked? This article is specifically geographic and modern-context; is this the right place for the legendary lore and history of the various lies and hoaxes that went along with it? Skookum1 09:15, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Assuming you have sources you can cite per WP:RS, WP:OR, etc., this looks like great material to add to Wikipedia. As to whether to include it here or in its' own article, I'd say that depends on the volume of the material. My own preference would be to not devote more than a paragraph or two here and link to more elsewhere. That's just my own opinion, however -- others may feel differently. --A. B. 23:54, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

There's potentially a lot of material, partly because of the varying theories and the number of speculative maps and apocryphal explorations to be accounted for - and also the number of actual recorded voyages (once sea captains became literate...) that were ostensibly in search of the Passage, from either side (Cartier on the one side, Cook on the other...; there's also a further legendary/speculative landscape which shows up in the Northwest Passage speculations, but which continues in its own right until the west was fully explored - le grand mer de l'ouest; and certain other features like Bergi and Anian which as you can see I've already redlinked (as a reminder to myself); there's also Cibola, land of the seven cities of gold, which both Spaniards and Americans were in search of in what is now the American West; the Spanish early on penetrating so far overland as to reach the 49th Parallel, or just over it, at Osoyoos BC (or so the theory goes; there are others to account for Spanish armour and weapons in native households in the area). So re the potential content of the article, it's so varied, Jonathan Swift even shows up because he places Brobdingnag to the north of Nova Albion, about where Skagway or Ketchikan is latitudinally...so a separate article seems necessary, but I'm stuck on a suitable title; Theories or Legends/Legendary or what?Skookum1 00:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lewis and Clark

This article is 100 percent oriented to the sea route. However, mention should be made of attempts to find a water route up the Missouri to the Pacific. That was the whole point of Lewis and Clark (and other interior explorers). Since passions run high, I wanted to run this by you before putting it in the article. Once we work something out, I will probably a start aSouthwest Passage article about attempts to find water route the southern coast of California. Americasroof 15:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

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