I’m opening the 2025 Northwest Passage thread earlier than usual, because of some news you can read if you scroll down. However, let’s first of all get our bearings with the help of this map of the area:
and another map detailing the routes through Canadian Arctic Archipelago that have previously been successfully traversed:
The news I was referring to is that at lunchtime today Ella Hibbert is setting off in her yacht Yeva from Haslar Marina near Portsmouth in southern England for a rather unusual voyage through the Northwest Passage this summer. Here is Ella’s current route plan:
You will note some unusual features. Apparently Ella is intent on taking Route 1 into the Beaufort Sea via McClure Strait. After that she is not heading for the Bering Strait, but is instead taking the route less travelled back to Haslar via the Northern Sea Route. Perhaps even more surprising in this day and age is that Ella has received permission to sail through Russian waters without an ice pilot. She is aiming to complete an entire circumnavigation of the Arctic in a single summer single handed! As Ella puts it, this is “A voyage that should not be possible”:
Ella is hoping to overcome terrifying challenges including icebergs, freezing water and polar bears.
Her journey – which has only recently become possible due to melting polar ice caps – aims to showcase the devastating environmental impact of sea ice decline, both in the Arctic and across the world.
Ella’s voyage also aims to support two charities working tirelessly to protect the Arctic: Polar Bears International and the Ocean Conservancy.
At the end of her voyage, Ella will auction her ship Yeva with proceeds to go to these two charities.
Some “pleasure craft” are currently heading up the west coast of Greenland en route to the Bering Strait via Lancaster Sound and one of the assorted routes through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of the Northwest Passage, here are couple of hopefully helpful maps:
Whilst there is still ice blocking the route across Baffin Bay from Greenland, the Canadian Ice Service has already started daily coverage of the heart of the southern route through the Northwest Passage. There’s plenty of open water in Lancaster Sound and low concentration sea ice in Prince Regent Inlet:
Further south there is also open water in the Coronation Gulf, but the fast ice between Peel Sound and King William Island has not yet started breaking up:
This slightly cloudy satellite image of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago also shows that the exit of the northern route via McClure Strait into the Beaufort Sea is already navigable:
Prompted by a comment on the Northwest Passage thread from last year I’m opening the 2021 equivalent earlier than usual, in part because there’s already a lot going on of interest. First of all let’s get our bearings with the help of this map of the area:
and another map detailing the routes through Canadian Arctic Archipelago that have previously been successfully traversed:
The forecast high pressure has arrived and the skies have cleared over the Beaufort Sea, which reveals that the land-fast ice off the Mackenzie Delta has started breaking up:
In addition the snow has been melting along the valley of the Mackenzie River, and the resulting increased flow at the mouth of the delta is flooding the fast ice:
Whilst the Northern Sea Route has opened up early this year, it will be be quite some time before the Northwest Passage follows suit. Nevertheless our old friend Northabout is currently sailing in the direction of Baffin Bay, so now seems as good a time as any to start speculating about the prospects for the Summer of 2020. The passage through Lancaster Sound is already navigable:
However as the Canadian Ice Service chart also shows, there are still some areas of 7-8/10 concentration along the Beaufort Sea coast en route to the Bering Strait. The central Canadian Arctic Archipelago is solid 9-10/10 at present, but what’s the prognosis? Here’s the final CryoSat-2/SMOS merged thickness map of the winter, from April 15th:
This suggests that the thickest ice on the usual route through the Northwest Passage for small vessels was around 1.2 meters in Larsen Sound. This seemed suspiciously thin to me, so next I tried the underlying Cryosat-2 data from AWI, which revealed this:
Suspicions confirmed. It looks like AWI are ignoring CS2 data in the CAA for 2020! Here’s how the CPOM Cryosat-2 numbers look for a similar date, which is hopefully nearer the reality:
The CAA was fairly cloud free on June 23rd, and this satellite image shows that surface melt had started across the entire central section of the Northwest Passage:
NASA Worldview “false-color”image of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago on June 23rd 2020, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite
All in all it looks to me as though “small vessels” will be able to successfully make it through the Northwest Passage later in the summer of 2020, with thicker ice drifting south into Larsen Sound from the McClintock Channel being a potential bottleneck.
[Edit – August 1st]
Whilst there are certainly some cruise ships planning on voyaging through the Northwest Passage this summer it looks as though there will be very few yachts or other small vessels. According to Transport Canada:
To better protect Arctic communities, pleasure craft are prohibited from operating in Canada’s Arctic coastal waters north of the 60th parallel until October 31, 2020, at the earliest:
to limit any potential interaction with remote and vulnerable coastal communities in consideration of minimal health care infrastructure in these waterways that notably comprise the Northwest Passage as well as the territorial sea of Canada surrounding Nunatsiavut, Nunavik and the Labrador Coast).
to allow the Canadian Coast Guard to focus efforts on essential operations including community resupply ice-breaking, environmental response, and search and rescue.
With this proviso:
In the Canadian Arctic coastal waters, the following measures will not apply to:
Foreign pleasure craft exercising their right of innocent passage within the territorial sea. However, any such transits will be subject to receipt of a 60-day written notice in advance of arrival in Canadian Arctic coastal waters to Transport Canada, and be subject to any conditions the Minister determines necessary to ensure the protection of marine personnel and of local communities (for example, additional insurance, rescue strategy).
[Edit – August 6th]
The skies were clear over the Northwest Passage yesterday, and this is what could be seen from the Aqua satellite:
I don’t know about you, but based on that image I reckon a plucky little yacht like Northabout could just about squeeze past the remaining sea ice along the coast of the Boothia Peninsula?
However let’s also take a look at the charts of the Canadian Ice Service shall we? The daily regional maps don’t cover the “squeeze point” yet, but the weekly map dated August 3rd reveals this:
We’re forced to conclude that officially the Northwest Passage isn’t quite “open” yet!
[Edit – August 7th]
The Canadian Ice Service have extended their daily coverage to the “choke point” we looked at above:
The Northwest Passage is still not “officially” open!
[Edit – August 8th]
The southern “choke point” is still blocking the way, and winds are currently pushing ice into the north of Peel Sound:
This Sentinel 2 image from August 6th shows the Bellot Strait to be completely clear of ice, so despite that route 6 through the Northwest Passage may well be very open soon.
[Edit – August 11th]
Snow White is pleased to announce that she cut the ribbon at the 2020 Northwest Passage route 6 opening ceremony earlier today:
[Edit – August 14th]
Whilst this is no doubt only temporary, the route along the coast of the Boothia Peninsula is now blocked by an area of 7-8/10 concentration ice:
[Edit – August 16th]
Route 6 is open once again, and it is also now possible to take a circuitous route around the north of both Somerset and King William Islands without encountering anything worse than 6/10 concentration ice:
[Edit – August 25th]
As one door opens, another one closes?
[Edit – August 27th]
Making one of my periodic visits to MarineTraffic I couldn’t help but notice a “pleasure craft” approaching Bellot Strait!
According to the Canadian government, he has no business being there. But 72-year-old Peter Smith is sailing the Northwest Passage anyway, in violation of COVID-19-related orders prohibiting most foreign yachts from entering Canadian waters.
But according to a Facebook post on Aug. 20, Bobby Klengenberg, a local observer with the Inuit Marine Monitoring Program, spotted Smith’s custom yacht, the Kiwi Roa, off the coast of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.
Transport Canada confirmed the sighting in an email to CBC News, and said the vessel was told “to depart Canadian waters and not make landfall.”
A spokesperson said the Canadian Coast Guard will “monitor the vessel’s transit out of the region.” If Smith is indeed found to have broken the law, they wrote, the agency “will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action,” including penalties of up to $5,000.
The time has come to start speculating about if, and when, the Northwest Passage will become navigable for the host of small vessels eager to traverse it this summer. The west and east entrances are clearing early this year. Lancaster Sound and Prince Regent inlet already reveal only a few area of white amongst the deep blue open water:
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of Lancaster Sound and Prince Regent Inlet on July 8th 2017, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite
To the west the route is already opening up all the way from the Chukchi Sea to Cambridge Bay:
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the Beaufort Sea on July 12th 2017, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite
The problems on the southern route seem likely to arise in the central section this year, where far more old ice is present this year than in 2016:
The remaining sea ice in Queen Maud Gulf doesn’t look like it will last long, but the ice in Victoria Strait and Larsen Sound is made of much sterner stuff:
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of Victoria Strait and Larsen Sound on July 10th 2017, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite
The cruise liner Crystal Serenity is anticipating navigating those waters once again this year, on August 29th. However much smaller craft are already heading for the Northwest Passage. Celebrate and Alkahest are already sailing north along the west coast of Greenland. Meanwhile Yvan Bourgnon is due to depart Nome, Alaska tomorrow, sailing his catamaran single handed in the opposite direction.
The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Maple, a 225-foot seagoing buoy tender home ported in Sitka, Alaska, departed [July 12th] on a historic voyage through the Northwest Passage.
This summer marks the 60th anniversary of the three Coast Guard cutters and one Canadian ship that convoyed through the Northwest Passage. The crews of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutters Storis, SPAR and Bramble, along with the crew of the Canadian ice breaker HMCS Labrador, charted, recorded water depths and installed aids to navigation for future shipping lanes from May to September of 1957. All four crews became the first deep-draft ships to sail through the Northwest Passage, which are several passageways through the complex archipelago of the Canadian Arctic.
The crew of the cutter Maple will make a brief logistics stop in Nome, Alaska, to embark an ice navigator on its way to support marine science and scientific research near the Arctic Circle. The cutter will serve as a ship of opportunity to conduct scientific research in support of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
The Maple crew will deploy three sonographic buoys that are used to record acoustic sounds of marine mammals. A principal investigator with the University of San Diego embarked aboard the cutter will analyze the data retrieved from the buoys.
The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Sir Wilfrid Laurier will rendezvous with the Maple later this month to provide icebreaking services as the Maple makes it way toward Victoria Strait, Canada. The Maple has a reinforced hull that provides it with limited ice breaking capabilities similar to Coast Guard 225-foot cutters operating on the Great Lakes.
There doesn’t seem to be any up to date tracking information for the Maple, but CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier has recently arrived off Utqiaġvik (Barrow as was):
[Edit – August 18th]
Another article by Chris Mooney in the Washington Post includes this image of the eastern entrance to Bellot Strait on August 11th:
According to Chris:
After we’d passed through safely, Claude Lafrance, the ship’s commanding officer, took some time to explain how the strait worked with the help of a navigational chart. In the process, he lent credence to some of the observations made by Larsen over 70 years ago, while also explaining how modern knowledge has made navigating it safe with a proper tidal understanding.
The essence is that depending on when you are in Bellot Strait, the waters can be flowing either westward or eastward at and around high or low tide, respectively. So timing your crossing makes a great deal of difference.
The danger is that if you’re coming from the west (as we were) with the current to your back, you can be moving too fast, and have difficulty steering your vessel as you approach rocks at the end of the strait.
“We always want to go through where it’s more difficult, with the current against you, because it’s a lot easier to control the movement of your ship,” Lafrance said.
Therefore, the two-hour wait was quite intentional: The CCGS Amundsen stayed put until the tide began to shift and the waters to flow back westward, in effect neutralizing the current. Then the ship steamed out easily. “We just passed at the ideal time to go through,” Lafrance said.
Here’s Sentinel 2A’s view of what he should expect to see in Larsen Sound after emerging at the other end:
[Edit – August 21st]
From the RRS Ernest Shackleton in Franklin Strait or thereabouts:
[Edit – August 22nd]
From the C3 expedition, also in the Franklin Strait area by the look of things:
Yesterday, we broke through ice that was two metres thick. Thank you to the Canadian Ice Service for ensuring our safe passage! #CanadaC3pic.twitter.com/2nCgalwPOo
The latest CIS ice chart reveals a circuitous route via McClintock Channel that is ALMOST <= 6/10 concentration. Meanwhile Larsen Sound is still refusing to open up for the imminent arrival of the Crystal Serenity:
[Edit – August 27th]
At long last the CIS concentration map reveals a <= 6/10 concentration path along the entire southern route via Bellot Strait:
[Edit – August 29th]
It is now possible to squeeze through Roald Amundsen’s route through the Northwest Passage without encountering over 6/10 concentration sea ice:
David Scott Cowper sought shelter for Polar Bound in the welcoming arms of Booth Island for a couple of days. Now they’re off again and have taken another close look at Cape Bathurst, but which route will they take now?
[Edit – September 10th]
David Scott Cowper has left Cambridge Bay in Polar Bound and is heading east:
here’s what lies ahead of him:
Watch this space!
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