The ocean above Barrow Canyon, covered with sea ice for up to 10 months a year, shows no trace of the dramatic scenery below. In 1957, The crew of the Nautilus used Barrow Canyon to slip from the Chukchi Sea to the deeper Beaufort Sea during the Nautilus's trip under the polar ice cap. The canyon provides a pathway for more than just submarines. Because it connects the relatively shallow table of the Chukchi Shelf to the deeper Beaufort Sea, Barrow Canyon serves as sort of a drainage ditch for the Chukchi Sea in the winter. Researchers have tracked cold, dense water from the Chukchi Sea flowing northeast through the canyon to the Beaufort Sea.
Currents occasionally flow southwest through the canyon, however.
That's where the Atlantic Ocean water shows up. The Atlantic water travels quite a distance to Barrow Canyon. The trip begins as currents carry Atlantic Ocean water northward between Scotland and Iceland. The water continues northeast past Norway, where it passes the Arctic Circle. There, it flows on around northern Russia to the Arctic Ocean.