Northern Canada

Traversed in its entirety fewer than 50 times, the Northwest Baffin Bay passage has never become the shortcut across the western hemisphere that Europen explorers looked for centuries. During most of the year the thick, hard ice from the bitter cold makes the seas unnavigationable. Long and sunny summer days loosen some of the ice and open a brief margin for transit beginning in the month of August. Smaller ships can sometimes go through the shallow southern route of the Lancaster Sound when melting ice breaks up and shifts aside.

Larger boats stick to the deeper northern route, where they must drive their way through much heavier ice. by November the passage has frozen shut again. Ships powerful enough to use the waterway could be built and operated with nowadays current technology but of course at a ridiculous price.

In 1845 Sir John Franklin left England with two ships to find and claim the Northwest Passage for Britain. The expedition vanished in the Arctic seas. Over the following years a number of rescue parties explored and mapped previously unknown regions until a complete map of the Arctic could be drawn. though the ships were never found, the searchers confirmed that Franklin and his 130 men had all died.

Charts of the passage feature the names of those who tried to traverse the elusive waterway.
In fact, the last link was put in place by a Norwegian who later became the first man to reach the South Pole. He was about to prove that a navigable northern route existed between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Four decades later, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant and his crew completed the first west-to-east transit of the Northwest passage.