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Opening A Northwest Passage

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On or about this date in 1940, the first successful west-to-east navigation of the Northwest Passage began, starting in Vanouver, BC and ending in Halifax, Nova Scotia, two years later.

The Northwest Passage is a sea route above the North American continent. For many years and quite a few explorers it was an elusive prize. Searching for it brought pain, despair and death to too many adventurers, who wound up with their vessels trapped in sea ice very far indeed from any hope of rescue.

shipwreck

It seemed the Northwest Passage was a myth, like Bigfoot or the Easter Bunny. But With our relentlessly progressing climate change, the ice has gone out and stayed out longer, and what was once thought impossible is now increasingly common. So common, nations have started arguing about who controls the route, which, when open for commercial uses, will save shippers an enormous amount of time and money.

Is this a silver lining in the saga of global warming? Ask a polar bear who is swimming and searching in vain for something solid to stand on.

I can only guess how members of the doomed 1845 Franklin Expedition might have processed the news that their goal could be reached with no trouble if only they were willing to wait 160 years. The bravery of a handful of long distance travelers willing to sacrifice comfort and life itself could not accomplish what billions of less valiant people have done simply by choosing to ride down to the corner for a pack of cigarettes. The Northwest Passage is destined to be opened by those of us who don’t mind idling in front of the neighborhood convenience store.

Of course it reminds me of this favorite song.

Back in the 1970’s when Stan Rogers wrote about tracing the Northwest Passage over highways in a car, little did he know he was talking about the very activity that, multiplied many times over, would cause a Northwest Passage by sea to finally open up.

When have you found your pathway blocked?

27 thoughts on “Opening A Northwest Passage”

  1. Good morning. When we went to the Twins game yesterday we were almost trapped in parking ramp A somewhat like those early explores that tried to find the Northwest Passage. A parking attendant pointed out the the way to find a spot and the sign had indicated that the ramp was not full. We made one circle around the ramp and found no spaces and then kept circling with the same result.

    We thought that, like in most ramps, by circling we would be moving up to the next level where we might find an open parking space. We should have know after making 3 or 4 circles that we were not moving up to another level. We could see no signs directing us to any route off the level we were on except the exit to the street. Finally, after circling many times, we decided to take an almost hidden route to a connected part of the ramp where we were afraid we might also get trapped.

    There were a few empty spaces in the new area and we were saved from a fate of circling forever or just leaving the ramp without finding a spot after having paid to park on the way into the ramp.

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      1. Getting out was also no picnic. We did not want to take the exit leading directly onto the interstate. There were signs indicating that an exit to local streets was available, but it took us a long time to find it by a very indirect route. Of course, once we were on local streets we were in another trap, which we expected, very slow traffic that barely moved in the downtown area.

        We had seats nearly at the top of the stadium which were good because the was a nice breeze and some shade.
        Apparently major league ball players find it difficult to play ball in the sun light these days because the game was filled with errors and bad plays. The Twins managed to hang in there for a win and we enjoyed being at the ball park.

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        1. White sox are famous for bad play and the twins are so young they are still learning how to play at this level. I was there Wednesday night with my two sons and could not have had a nicer time. Bought student tickets for the boys and found empty seats behind home plate. Thanking the gods that make things turn out right

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        2. Well, the Twins’ defensive play wasn’t quite perfect, Jim. But let’s give credit to the ballboy whose incredible snag of a hard liner will make all the highlight reels!

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        3. The bad play in the 9th inning managed to load the bases and I was afraid that the next mistake would be a fat pitch right over the plate that would result in a grand slam home run to tie the game, but it didn’t happen. I didn’t see the play by the ballboy.

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  2. Thanks, Dale, for this piece. I’ve never listened as carefully to the lyrics of the song as I should have. This is classic Stan Rogers songwriting. Indeed, many of us have had our own perilous voyages of exploration, some of which proved to be blocked.

    My response to this song has always been intensified by that slightly odd harmony, the part where that man’s high voice hits the final line of verses an octave above the expected note. This is the only song, in my experience, where that happens. and it is moving.

    I’ve blogged too often about my own voyage of exploration. I’d expect most baboons could fill in that blank for me to answer this question. With uncharacteristic modesty, I’ll let it go at that. This is a morning in which I have Things to Do and Places to Go. Have a lovely day, friends, and try to keep dry.

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  3. last night my path to sleep as blocked by my 1 year old puppies realazation that lightning coud indeed strike right outsdie your window. wowser was that ever a light show. normally i sleep through that stuff but last night i was up for the dogs and my son had a bunch of young men over to watch the game 7 finale of the basketball season and with the desired outcome being achieved the celebrating resulted in many of these responsible youth laying their drunken bones down on couches and recliners in the basement but not before witnessing the power of the lightning to shut off the tv and and make the telephone ring. it must have hit darn close.
    between the lightning at 2 and the boogie man waking the dogs up at 4 i gave it up and did the crash and burn myself on the couch so i could tell the dogs to relax as they barked and whined through the night. luckily i dont have a busy schedule tonight and i should be able to get caught up again. the dog nazis came around day before yesterday and told me a neighbor had filed a complaint about my barking dogs so i had better watch it. one of the activities do best is to feed and let them out at 530-600 and let them back in way later, maybe after returning from other callings. now i have to be listening to be sure some barking doesnt get us banished from the tranquil setting of suburban bliss where dogs dont bark and people dont rise until all their neighbors have hauled their lazy asses out of bed.

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    1. We are lucky that we don’t have anyone objecting our dog that barks too much. Fortunately he doesn’t do it very much early in the morning or during the night. We used a barker breaker to keep another dog we had from barking that was bothering a neighbor. This breaker has a sound sensor that causes it to give out a short loud sound when a dog barks. It worked for a dog we had that was afraid of loud sounds. Other dogs that we have had just ignore the barker breaker and kept barking.

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      1. We bought a barker breaker like that, Jim. We had just gotten it when one of Molly’s high school friends expressed an interest in it. She held it to her throat and barked. I guess she was unprepared for the electrical jolt, for her eyes crossed and she went silent for several minutes. After that I never tried it on myself and I limited the use of it on our barking dog.

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        1. The one I used did not give an electrical sock at all. It just had a loud sound that stopped the more timid dog from barking.

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  4. I suspect much of the meandering quality of my life has to do with my tendency to prefer to go around things rather than through them, if at all possible.

    Jim’s story reminds me of a particularly haircurling trip on the DC Metro fter the fireworks on the Mall (when they play the 1812 Overture and shoot off the big guns.

    The Metro was jam-packed afterwards, and for some unknown reason, the train suddenly stopped in a tunnel. I had ridden through that tunnel to and from work for more than a year, but suddenly, knowing that I was crammed on that train, under the Potomac and could not do a thing to get out of there was about more than I could stand. The only thing that kept me from screaming was the knowledge that that would only make things worse.

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  5. the northwest passage has an entry point i found by accident years ago up near the city of jasper in the cnadian rockies in what has turned out to be one of my faorite places on earth. the people who would launch their treck form there were unfailingly interesting and the folks who communed with nature their were the good hippies who did the right amount of drugs and drank the right amount of alcohol and sang the right kind of accoustic music. a moment in time for me that always brings a moment of silence in respen=ct of the gods who make stuff go right. it was a place where things went right. celestine lake if you want to look it up is still the launch point for those hilkers with teir 60 lbs of dehydrated food and a backpack as big as you brother to halp them ake the journey. it will take 3 months but the backpack will get progressivly lighter as we go. book on berries and mushrooms and root vegetables to be found along the trail for the evenings enjoyent usually rode int the side pocket of the backpack and a long rope for stringing the food up between the trees where the bears would not be able to wipe out the trips supply in one fell swoop. bears live mainly on roots and berries but evidently dehydrated chile and cream of brocolli soup tastes pretty good to them too.

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  6. After I went to see my newborn niece at United Hospital, I tried to go home by my usual route over the Wabasha Street bridge, but the city had closed it temporarily due to flooding. The river was very high, but certainly not high enough to flood the bridge – the concern was that there was a lot of debris in the river washing up against the bridge supports. This was the old Wabasha Street bridge, which was slated for replacement in 1994. Before the flooding, the bridge was being inspected once a week because it was so rickety, and once the rushing river compounded the problem with the debris, officials decided to close it every evening and inspect it each morning before reopening it. Poor old bridge – for awhile it was sort of a crapshoot whether it could survive another night.

    I remember the date, of course – it was June 22, 1993. My niece turns 20 tomorrow.

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  7. Morning all. We’re having “Take Your Dog to Work Day” here – just wild. I have the two furbags and the Teenager to assist. We just came from a group “Yappy Hour” out on the lawn with everybody else. I love this kind of stuff.

    Usually when I have my path blocked, something else seems to turn up. When Child didn’t get chosen in the lottery for the elementary school we wanted, it turned out that the second choice was grand…. that kind of thing.

    For a more literal bent, about 16 years ago I went to California to get a puppy (long story involving a free airline ticket or I wouldn’t have done this). The owner let me sleep on her sofa. The next morning there were Santa Ana winds; these are serious winds, folks. Ramps were closed because empty trailer trucks were blowing over, streets were closed w/ tree branches coming down. We even saw a transformer fall over and explode. The owner was calmer than I was, just kept turning this way and that.. eventually we made it to the airport. Due to the winds everything was delayed, so we made the flight. When we got to the #1 spot on the runway, we ended up sitting for about 20 minutes, waiting for a good “window”. It was a little scary taking off, but we made it out and made it home in one piece!

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    1. Sitting in a delay pattern on the runway for safety reasons and then taking off would also make me uncomfortable, VS. I was on a plane where there was some problem with the controls that prevented take off. The plane was part way back to the terminal when it was decided that the controls were okay. How did they know that those controls were really back in working order was the question I had as they turned around to get back on the runway.

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  8. Most recently, getting on the computer this morning; I am posting this from the library. Power went out during the storm last night, and I am blocked at every turn… glad we have a gas stove and non-electric flush toilets! Will have to read more later…

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        1. Well, Edith, it seems that VS has tracked down an electric toilet seen in the above video. How about that?

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  9. I find my pathway blocked on may occasions when i take our dog for a walk. I stop and find another way to go whenever I see someone else coming in my direction with their dog. Our dog gets very excited when it sees another dog and I don’t want to put up with the wild activity that will occur when he sees another dog.

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