The quest for the North West Passage

The possibility of a quick, efficient and cheap link between the two great oceans has revealed the level of political and strategic investment in the area. The Canadians have laid claim to the passage but others suggest it should be an international shipping route.

The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich showcases this twist to the age-old quest that occupied the finest British explorers during the 19th century.

One of the curators of North West Passage: An Arctic Obsession is Claire Warrior. She said: "The Arctic has become something that has fallen into the public eye again with issues over climate change and sovereignty."

In a visual presentation at the exhibition, Inuit John Keogak confirms the devastating changes to his home. He tells how permafrost has become mudslide and his way of life is dying. He adds: "The sun is shining all the time. I don't know what the impact is but it doesn't look good."

Ms Warrior said of the exhibition: "For us it was a question of drawing some parallels with the 19th century when the Arctic was of incredible interest to Britain."

The hard-headed impetus behind the quest may have been to secure a lucrative trading route.

But the force that drove British explorers to risk their lives in these treacherous waters was more visceral and also has modern parallels. For few would agree to establish and lead such a perilous venture for money alone. The cruel seascapes, the harsh conditions and the monotony cost too many lives served to exclude all but the most ardent.

The driving force was pride, status and standing, the watchwords for the dominant British Navy looking for a new grand enterprise after the defeat of Napoleon.

It brings to mind the race for the moon, in which two powerful nations invested huge sums in a quest to be able to say - we were first.

Ms Warrior said: "The Arctic has often been seen as a proving ground for the British character - they were showing everyone how sturdy and tenacious they were and how they could survive in a very harsh climate.

"The British had dominated the seas and it looked like the Russians might get there first. The thought at the time was - 'we can't possibly let them'.

"There are a lot of parallels with the race for the moon. Britain wasn't looking for an economic gain it was more about status - the thought that 'we can do this, we can mount these expeditions, we can put the resources into this'."

The first recorded attempt to find the trading route was in 1497 but British interest magnified 300 years later. A £20,000 prize offered in 1775 prompted the Admiralty to bring Captain Cook out of retirement to lead a fruitless venture.

The exhibition especially focuses on the grand attempts of the era by four eminent British explorers - Sir John Ross, Sir James Clarke Ross, Sir William Parry and Sir John Franklin.

The last of those names is the most famous. In 1845 Sir John Franklin set out on an expedition on a grand scale in vessels equipped with the latest technology. However, both ships and their crews vanished and later rescue missions found that all 129 men had died of starvation, exposure and sickness.

The 40 private and official missions to ascertain the cause of the tragedy - driven by Sir John's tireless widow Lady Jane - began in 1848 and would last 10 years.
Some of the men were driven to cannibalism but this didn't stop Victorian society hailing Sir John Franklin as a hero of the age.

The eventual discovery of the passage is credited to Sir Robert McClure in 1854.
But, despite the British investment in its conquest, the route was first navigated by that Norwegian crusher of British dreams Roald Amundsen in 1906 in the herring boat Gjoa.

- North West Passage: An Arctic Obsession is free and runs until January 23 at the National Maritime Museum.

ARCTIC EXPLORERS

- Sir John Ross began his quest for the passage in 1818 with two ships but he returned early despite protests. His 1829 trip ended with the crew abandoning ship in 1832 to be rescued.
- Sir William Edward Parry served under John Ross on the 1818 voyage and led his own in 1821-23, heading out again in 1824, and taking with him revolutionary canning techniques for food.
- Blackheath-born Sir James Clark Ross, John's nephew, took the Erebus and Terror to the Antartic between 1839-1843 and charted much of the coastline.

Images:
Top: A pocket chronometer recovered from Sir John Franklin's expedition
Middle: An early image of Sir John Franklin
Above: First Communication With The Natives of Prince Regent's Bay by John Sackhouse
Courtesy of National Maritime Museum