The earliest voyages into polar waters were made almost solely in the interests of commerce—to discover, if possible, a short route to China and the East Indies. Keen and costly was the rivalry among the various European nations, and many daring and hardy navigators were sent out by Great Britain, Holland, Russia, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and France.
In 1588, John Davis, following the coast of Greenland from Cape Farewell to Sanderson Hope, a distance of eight hundred miles, gained for Great Britain the record of farthest north, 72° 12´.
Hudson in 1607 broke this record by reaching 80° 23´ N. Lat., and on his return reported the discovery of large numbers of whales and walruses. As a result the arctic circle became the Mecca for the next two centuries for hundreds of whaling-ships and thousands of men from Northern countries.
In 1773, almost one hundred and seventy-five years later, Hudson’s record was surpassed by the small margin of twenty-five miles by Phipps, and this new record was not bettered until 1806, when Scoresby, an enterprising British whaler, ventured to deviate from the beaten track of the whalers and reached 81° 30´ N. Lat.
Several attempts were made by Parry to find the Northwest Passage, and although he was unsuccessful in this, the experience gained in ice-work was most valuable and marked a new era in polar exploration. He was the first to suggest the idea of a journey afoot from a land base to the North Pole.
After Parry came Ross, and later Franklin; but it was not until 1850–55 that the Northwest Passage was accomplished by McClure on foot. McClure traversed the ice between his ship, the Investigator, which had entered the polar ocean via Bering Strait, and was crushed by the ice in Barrow Strait, and Collinson’s ship, the Enterprise, in Melville Sound, and returned to England via Lancaster Sound and Davis Strait. The actual navigation of the Northwest Passage was effected by Roald Amundsen, who in 1903–06 sailed from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the Gjoa.
Subsequently arctic navigators turned their attention to the attainment of the North Pole, and in 1853–55 for the first time in America took a part in ice navigation. Kane discovered and explored the shores of Kane Basin, and outlined a route to the pole, which is now known as the American route.
Hayes, who had accompanied Kane, undertook a later expedition, but did not materially extend Kane’s work.
In 1871, Hall, another American, forced his ship, the Polaris, to a new northing of 82° 11´. Four years later Nares in the Alert attained 83° 20´ N. Lat. These two ships were the only ones up to this time which had successfully negotiated the channels forming the American gateway to the pole.
All previous records for ice navigation in the arctic regions of the Western Hemisphere were broken by the Roosevelt, which reached Cape Sheridan in 1905, and penetrated two miles beyond it in 1908. One ship only has been nearer the pole, the Fram, but this higher latitude was attained not under stress of her own power, but by drifting in the grip of the ice.