The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Siberia is accordingly called the Northeast Passage (NEP). The various islands of the archipelago are separated from one another and from Mainland Canada by a series of Arctic waterways collectively known as the Northwest Passages or Northwestern Passages.
The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and The Americas. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves. The Bering Sea is named for Vitus Bering, a Danish navigator in Russian service, who, in 1728, was the first European to systematically explore it, sailing from the Pacific Ocean northward to the Arctic Ocean.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a national wildlife refuge in northeastern Alaska, United States. It consists of 19,286,722 acres (78,050.59 km2) in the Alaska North Slope region. It is the largest national wildlife refuge in the country, slightly larger than the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is administered from offices in Fairbanks. ANWR includes a large variety of species of plants and animals, such as polar bears, grizzly bears, black bears, moose, caribou, wolves, eagles, lynx, wolverine, marten, beaver and migratory birds, which rely on the refuge.
Sir John Franklin was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic, in 1819 and 1825, and served as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1839 to 1843. During his third and final expedition to force the Northwest Passage in 1845, Franklin's ships became icebound off King William Island in what is now Nunavut, where he died in June 1847. The icebound ships were abandoned ten months later and the entire crew died, from causes such as starvation, hypothermia, and scurvy.
White Wilderness is a 1958 American-Canadian nature documentary produced by Walt Disney Productions. It is noted for its propagation of the misconception of lemming mass suicide.
Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve is an American national park that protects portions of the Brooks Range in northern Alaska. The park is the northernmost national park in the United States, situated entirely north of the Arctic Circle. The park is the second largest in the US at 8,472,506 acres, slightly larger in area than Belgium.
Noatak National Preserve is a United States National Preserve in northwestern Alaska that was established to protect the Noatak River Basin. The Noatak River system, located just north of the Arctic Circle, is thought to be the last remaining complete river system in the United States that has not been altered by human activities. The roadless basin was proclaimed a United States National Monument in 1978 and a National Preserve in 1980 through the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). Noatak National Preserve borders Kobuk Valley National Park on the south and Gates of the Arctic National Park on the east. Unlike the national parks that it borders, sport hunting is allowed in Noatak National Preserve.
Never Cry Wolf is a 1983 American drama film directed by Carroll Ballard. The film is an adaptation of Farley Mowat's 1963 autobiography of the same name and stars Charles Martin Smith as a government biologist sent into the wilderness to study the caribou population, whose decline is believed to be caused by wolves, even though no one has seen a wolf kill a caribou. The film also features Brian Dennehy and Zachary Ittimangnaq. It was the first Disney film to be released under the new Walt Disney Pictures label. The film was released on October 7, 1983 for a limited distribution, and in the regular theaters on January 27, 1984.
Ken McGoogan is the Canadian author of fifteen books, including Flight of the Highlanders, Dead Reckoning, 50 Canadians Who Changed the World, How the Scots Invented Canada, and four biographical narratives focusing on northern exploration and published internationally: Fatal Passage, Ancient Mariner, Lady Franklin's Revenge, and Race to the Polar Sea.
Richard K. Nelson, also known as "Nels", was an American cultural anthropologist and writer. He grew up living in Wisconsin, receiving his education from the University of Wisconsin–Madison before earning his Ph.D. degree from the University of California. Nelson spent many years living in Interior Alaska with indigenous people, reflected through his work. His work has focused primarily on the indigenous cultures of Alaska and, more generally, the relationships between people and nature. He was the host to a public radio series called Encounters aired nationally. He has been awarded a variety of awards for his commitment to the community as an activist, serving on the Sitka Conservation Society, and for his creativity as both an author and artist. Nelson died in a San Francisco Hospital at the age of 77 from a long-term battle with cancer.
Fatal Passage: The Untold Story of John Rae, the Arctic Adventurer Who Discovered the Fate of Franklin is a book by Canadian historian and writer Ken McGoogan. It was first published in 2001. The book formed the basis for the 2008 movie Passage from the National Film Board of Canada.
Robert Marshall was an American forester, writer and wilderness activist who is best remembered as the person who spearheaded the 1935 founding of the Wilderness Society in the United States. Marshall developed a love for the outdoors as a young child. He was an avid hiker and climber who visited the Adirondack Mountains frequently during his youth, ultimately becoming one of the first Adirondack Forty-Sixers. He also traveled to the Brooks Range of the far northern Alaskan wilderness. He wrote numerous articles and books about his travels, including the bestselling 1933 book Arctic Village.
Lynn Schooler is an American novelist, nonfiction author, photographer, an outdoorsman, and Alaskan wilderness guide living in Juneau, Alaska. He wrote The Blue Bear, The Last Shot and Walking Home.
Athabasca is a novel by Scottish author Alistair MacLean, first published in 1980. As with the novel Night Without End, it depicts adventure, sabotage and murder in the unforgiving Arctic environment. It is laid in the oilfields and oil sands fields of Alaska and Canada and includes a considerable amount of technical detail on the operations.
The Baffin Mountains are a mountain range running along the northeastern coast of Baffin Island and Bylot Island, Nunavut are part of the Arctic Cordillera. The ice-capped mountains are some of the highest peaks of eastern North America, reaching a height of 1,525–2,146 metres (5,003–7,041 ft) above sea level. While they could be considered a single mountain range as they are separated by bodies of water to make Baffin Island, this is not true, as they are closely related to the other mountain ranges that make the much larger Arctic Cordillera mountain range.
HMS Investigator was a merchant ship purchased in 1848 to search for Sir John Franklin's ill-fated Northwest Passage expedition. She made two voyages to the Arctic and had to be abandoned in 1853, after becoming trapped in the pack ice.
Ice Palace is a 1960 Technicolor historical drama adventure film directed by Vincent Sherman starring Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Carolyn Jones and Martha Hyer. It dramatized the debate over Alaska statehood. Alaska had become a state in 1959.
Karen E. Bender is an American novelist.
In The Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette (Doubleday), 2014, is a nonfiction book written by the author and historian Hampton Sides. The book tells the true story of the 1879–1881 arctic voyage of the USS Jeannette and the crew's struggle to survive after having to abandon their ship in the polar ice.
Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape is a 1986 nonfiction book by Barry Lopez. It won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, the Christopher Medal, a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and an Oregon Book Award for literary nonfiction. It was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.
