The northern Alberta bison producer who is sailing around the world has officially been added to the record books as making the 103rd crossing through the Northwest Passage and the 39th journey by a Canadian boat.
In an e-mail to Ben Gray, captain of the Idlewild, Robert Headland, a senior associate with the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England, who monitors travel through the Northwest Passage, acknowledged the journey.
“I have maintained records of transits of the Northwest Passage (Atlantic to Pacific or v.v.) to the end of the current season and record that Idlewild, a 17.3 (metre) motorboat, made an eastbound transit using the southern route including Simpson Strait and Bellot Strait in 2005 with you as master,” Headland wrote.
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It took Gray and his sons Kevin and Brad about two months to travel from the Bering Strait in the Pacific to Bellot Strait in the Atlantic. It took Norwegian sailor Roald Amundsen three years to make the journey by ice cutter when he became the first to do so in 1903-1905.
Originally, Headland had thought the Idlewild was the 40th journey by a Canadian boat, but had to revise his records after the Minke 1 was forced to turn back because of weather and spend another winter in Cambridge Bay.
“It takes a bit of detective work to find out what happened,” said Headland, who has made the Arctic journey five times while lecturing about the Arctic on passenger boats.
Headland said many boats travel across the Arctic, but they must meet certain criteria before being written into the record books.
“I expect them to get from the Atlantic Ocean, basically the Labrador Sea, where they can either enter from Hudson’s Strait or Lancaster Sound, to the Pacific Ocean to the Bering Strait into the Bearing Sea.”
Ships have used seven routes over the years to get through the Northwest Passage, Headland said, with the most difficult being the route through the Canadian archipelago, which includes more than 50 large islands, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, where tundra and permanent ice cover the islands.
“You’ve got to remember the ancient ice, the really thick floating ice on the Arctic Ocean, can come right up to the coast of Alaska. That last bit on the map looks easy, but it can also be very difficult,” said Headland, who added ships have needed good timing to get past the deep ice in recent years.
He said a combination of better navigation equipment and a greater interest in the Arctic has fueled the increase in the number of people attempting to make the voyage.
“I hesitate to say it’s becoming easier. The important thing is that it’s becoming more variable.”
Headland said a private boat has been stuck for two years in Cambridge Bay because of severe ice.
This fall during the Idlewild’s journey, the Canadian Coast Guard ice breakers Sir Wilfred Laurier and Louis St. Laurent provided assistance to boats trying to navigate the ice.
In the past two years, the most powerful ice breaker that’s ever been through the Arctic, the Russian Kapitan Khlebnikov, which has made 14 trips through the Northwest Passage, has been forced to use all six engines to break through the ice.
“The captain was quite distressed by the amount of money going up the funnel,” Headland said.
“I thought they were fairly severe, that might count a little bit, but the captain thought they were very severe and that counts for a lot more.”
The other unique part of the Idlewild journey was its route through the Bellot Strait, an often difficult and rarely used route, Headland said. Only about a quarter of the boats have used that route; the majority use Peel Sound further north.
“If the weather is right, if the tide is right, if the ice is right, it’s an easy short cut.”
