total of 86 days (from July 22 to Oct 16 1944), although it actually involved 43 days of actual sailing. That certainly sounds like it was more straightforward and sounds like it may have involved steaming through an ice-free Passage, doesn't it ? Well, the reality is rather different. The description again is of heavy, tightly-packed ice and atrocious weather - so much so that the only really fine day was actually noted in the account. Again, most of the open water they experienced consisted of leads between the ice, which they had to follow as far as they could before anchoring on the ice to shelter from the persistently bad weather. It was reported by Larsen that that particular season was "the worst in years." Again, hardly ice-free by any description. In fact, as Larsen himself later acknowledged , the only reason the voyages were attempted had nothing to do with any widespread opening-up of the Passage and everything to do with WWII and Canada's determination to re-iterate its sovereignty over the Northwest Passage, and its concern to show that there were no physical obstacles to prevent it defending its territory. And compare those 1940s conditions with those more usual now : such as 2007 , when the Northwest Passage demonstrably opened up for the first time officially recorded; 2008 , when both the Northwest and Northeast Passages demonstrably both opened up at the same time for the first time officially recorded; 2010 and 2011 , when the Northwest