The search for the Northwest Passage began in the 15th century, as Europeans sought a route to Asia for trade.
Over the next centuries, some of the western world’s best explorers attempted the route. Every one of them was foiled by the brutal conditions and the enveloping ice. The area was eventually mapped by the likes of the Hudson Bay Company and the existence of a route began to fall into doubt after so many failed attempts to locate it.
Then, in the 1860s, the Orcadian John Rae, hiking overland, finally found a sea route from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the 1860s. It was not until Roald Amundsen set out in 1903 that the route was finally navigated in a journey that took 3 years, due to the continually freezing ice. In 2022 the NWP Expedition plans on being the first to row the passage.