Evening star., 1937-09-04
NEW NORTHWEST
PASSAGE CAARTED
Shorter Water Route Be.
tween Eastern and West
ern Canada Discovered,

ABOARD 3. 3. NASCOPIE, Prince
Regent Inlet. Canada, September 4
canadian Press) "A second North
west passage across the top Of the
world was charted yesterday, when
two ships met in the Arctic waters of
Bellot Strait.
The meeting OF the two vessels, full
filling again the 40O-year- -old dream of
Elizabethan explorers, marked the dis
covery Of q new and shorter water
route between Eastern and Western
Canada.
Cautiously feeling its way through
the unknown waters OF Bellot Strait,
the Hudson Bay Co.'S ship Nascopie
sighted the schooner Aklavik, family
silhouetted In 4 light snowstorm.
The encounter took place at 4 rocky
headland on the most northerly tip
Of the Canadian mainland where the
narrow strait separates Boothia Penin-
suls from Somerset Island.
The Nascopie had come from Mon
treal; the Aklavik, from Cambridge
Bay. in the Mackenzie region of the
"CoNih AiStAS-
Traversed for First Time.
1t was the first time ship had ira
versed unsounded Bellot Strait.
I'm the latter part OF the sixteenth
century the great English explorers,
such as Martin Frobisher. John Davis
and Francis Drake, sought to find a
Northwest passage to the Far East
and the wealth of China and India.
tThey were encouraged by Queen
Elizabeth. On their many JOURNEYS
they discovered and charted much of
the Arctic waters Of the North Ameri-
can continent. Henry Hudson carried
the search into the seventeenth CEN
tury, discovering Hudson Bay. which
he thought was part Of the Pacific
Ocean
MANY lives were lost in the quest
through the centuries for . North
west passage, but 1t was not until
July IL, 1906, that a ship finally made
the perilous voyage from the Atlantic
to the Pacific.
Amundsen Sailed Through.
Capt. Roald Amundsen, in his
sealing sloop the G joa. made q three
year traverse OF ice-churned Lancaster
Sound. Barrow Strait. down the
Westerly shore of Boothia Peninsula
and along the Northern Canadian
shore to the Beaufort and Berins
Seas and thence into the Pacific. The
voyage Of the original Northwest
Passage lasted from 1908 to 1906.
THE early English explorers had
mapped most of Northwest Passage
by dogsled, but Amundsen was the
first to sail a ship through)
When the Aklavik and the Nascopie
made their contact Eskimos from the
Eastern Arctic and the Western Mac
Kenzie River district aboard the
ships made the icebound wilderness
echo with cheers
Mai. d. L. McKeand, commander
OF the Eastern Arctic patrol, greeted
Patsy Klingenberg. famous trader
and interpreter of the Western Arctic.
When it becomes fully charted, the
Bellot Strait passage will offer not
! only shorter route. but 4 safer one,
than the Lancaster Sound Barrows
Strait passage from Eastern to West
ern Canada, 1t was said.
Minerals Discovered.
BOSTON, September tR.-Dis-
covery Of iron, sulphur and copper
deposits on Baffin Land and the East
ern shore Of Northern Labrador, hith-
erto considered barren arctic waste,
was reported last night by Prof
Martin J. Buerger.
Buerger said that he considered
the discovery OF scientific importance,
but that 1t would be OF no aid to
industry because the deposits are
not rich enough and are too far away"
An associate professor OF geology
and petrography At Massachusetts,
Institute of Technology. Buerger
spent 10 weeks exploring the Arctic
region with the expedition headed
by Comdr. Donald B. Macmillan.
Buerger said Baffin Land. next to
Australia and Greenland the larg-
est island in the world, was slowly
rising out of the sea-"