Could the Northwest Passage open for business?
Western explorers began looking for a shortcut between Europe and Asia more than 500 years ago. Some went south, where they discovered the enticingly narrow Panamanian isthmus. Others aimed north, bumping into the American continent and pursuing inland waterways. Henry Hudson found himself trapped with a mutinous crew in a bay that lead nowhere near as close to the Pacific as he had hoped it would. Captain James Cook concluded that there was no passage through North America after making it to the Bering Straight; he was stabbed in the back by Hawaiian natives on his return home. But after centuries of expeditions by sea and land, explorers eventually pieced together knowledge of a viable — though frozen — route from Baffin Bay to the Bering Sea, and thus from th
