The Northwest Passage

DALLAS PRATT

The Northwest Passage is again in the news. Its dramatic history is re¬
counted here, illustrated by manuscript and graphic material from the
'Libris Polaris' Collection, donated to Columbia in 11)4^ by Bassett Jones,
an engineer who collected books and manuscripts on the polar region.

yN September 5, 1969, the S.S. Manhattan entered the
Northwest Passage to undertake the first large-scale com¬
mercial voyage across the top of North America. Every¬
thing was colossal about this 45,000-horse-powered 143,000-ton
oil tanker, including rhe cost: $39,000,000. Guided by space satel¬
lites, bouncing sonar signals off the ocean floor to follow charts
previously prepared by nuclear submarines, equipped with heli¬
copters and accompanied by two powerful ice-breakers, the ship
turned her armored steel bow into Lancaster Sound and barged
into the ice of Barrow Strait and Melville Sound, some of it six to
fourteen feet thick with forty-foot ridges. At least twelve times
she stuck fast in spite of her huge power, and had to be dislodged
by the more maneuverable accompanying Canadian ice-breaker,
the John A. MacDonald. In McClure Strait, under pressure from
the polar pack piled up by winds ofi^ rhe perpetually frozen Arctic
Ocean, she had to change her route and set a course south through
Prince of Wales Strait, arriving at Point Barrow, Alaska, on Sep¬
tember 20.

The purpose of the exercise was to test the feasibility of using
the Northwest Passage to tap the rich oil deposits of Alaska's North
Slope. The voyage of the Manhattan proved that a giant tanker
could, after a fashion,' get through, carrying a large crew provided

1 "The Manljattan returned with a big crack in its hull." Anditbon Magazine,
Jan. 1970, p.117.

15
- THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE, AS SHOWN ON 1877 MAP

Route of Sir John Franklin's expetiition in 184^-46
is shown up to the point where the ships were caught
in the Arctic ice sweeping down McClintock Chan¬
nel. Sir John and the crews perished.