Warming phases throughout a short 500 year history ....................We are currently in another temporary warming phase....
Northwest Passage Expeditions
John Cabot
John Cabot, a Venetian navigator living in England, became the first European to explore the Northwest Passage in 1487
He sailed from Bristol, England, in May with a small crew of 18 men and made landfall somewhere in the Canadian Maritime islands the following month. Like Christopher Columbus five years before him, Cabot thought he had reached the shores of Asia.
King Henry VII authorized a second, larger expedition for Cabot in 1498. This expedition included five ships and 200 men. Cabot and his crew never returned. They are thought to have been shipwrecked in a severe storm in the North Atlantic.
Jacques Cartier
In 1534, King Francis I of France sent explorer Jacques Cartier to the New World in search of riches… and a faster route to Asia. He took two ships and 61 men with him, exploring the coast of Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence and discovering today’s Prince Edward Island, but not the Northwest Passage.
Cartier’s second voyage took him up the St. Lawrence River to Quebec, which he is credited with founding. Faced with scurvy among his men and increasingly angry Iroquois, Cartier captured Iroquois chiefs and brought them to France, where they told King Francis I about another great river that lead Westward to riches and, perhaps, Asia.
Cartier’s third voyage took place in 1541 and was not successful. He retired to his estate in Saint-Malo, never to sail again.
Francisco de Ulloa
The Spanish referred to The Northwest Passage as the "Straight of Anián." In 1539, Spanish explorer Francisco de Ulloa, funded by Hernán Cortés, set sail from Acapulco, Mexico, in search of a Pacific route to the Northwest Passage. He sailed North up the California Coast as far as the Gulf of California, but turned around when he was unable to find the fabled Straight of Anián. He is credited with proving that California is a peninsula, not an island–a popular misconception at the time.
Henry Hudson
In 1609, the merchants of the Dutch East India Company hired English explorer Henry Hudson to find the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Hudson navigated along the North American coast looking for a more southern, ice-free route across the North American continent to the Pacific Ocean.
