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Sailors Find Iceless NW Passage

As ice thaws, yachts glide through Northwest Passage

By Caroline Zimmerman, Newser User

Posted Sep 13, 2007 8:40 PM CDT

(Newser) – It's smooth sailing in the Arctic nowadays. Even in recent years, the ice was apt to claim adventurers who dared navigate the Northwest Passage. This year the passage has no ice. And with global warming claiming some 38,000 square miles of ice a year, the Journal reports, the Arctic could be open to commercial and recreational sailing by 2020.

Until this summer, the few ships that made it through the Arctic passage were ice cutters or commercial ships with tough hulls, but now yachts are making the cut, too. "I feel like a bit of a fraud, really," said one adventurer, who made the trip in his leisure boat. "It's all been quite comfortable,"

[Images (4)]

[Videos (1)]

An icy memorial marks a previous party's failed attempt to navigate the passage in harsher times. (Flickr; Creative Commons)

The Northwest Passage, formerly hostile to sailors, has grown more accommodating with the steady increase in global temperature. (Getty Images)

A Canadian military vessel navigates the Northwest Passage, increasingly free of dangerous ice. (Getty Images)

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper acknowledges a crowd of Navy members prior to making an announcement of the construction of up to eight Polar Class 5 Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships at CFB Esquimalt... (Associated Press)

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Sailors Find Iceless NW Passage