NORTH-WEST PASSAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 7 January 1930, Page 3

NORTH-WEST PASSAGE

FORGED BY CANADIAN SHIPS.

VANCOUVER, November 27

More than 300 years after Henry Hudson’s four attempts to discover a route to China, the North-west Passage has been forced by the Hudson’s Bay Company, which thus fulfils the ui.iin object tor which its charter was granted by Charles 11. in 1670. The Bay Chimo, which left here hist summer on her annual voyage to tlie Arctic, reached Cambridge, Bay in August. Here she was fortunate in succoring Colonel'MoAlpjne .and his seven companions of a minerals exloiv.tion expedition . that was lost eight weeks in the Arctic. The Fort James started from Nova Scotia a year earlier, sailing up Davis Strait to Ponds Inlet, around the the north of Baffin Land, s through Lancaster Sound ..to Somerset Island, then down through Peel Sound and Franklin Strait to the Magnetic North Pole at Cape Adelaide on Boothis Peninsula. Slio wintered in the vicinity of King William Island at Gjoakivlen and was preparing to continue her voyage to Cambridge Bay when she was driven ashore and damaged her rudder. She. was obliged to winter there. The motor-schooner Fort MacPhersori, which cruises continuously in tho, Arctic, carrying supplies to Hudson’s Bay Company posts established contact between the Fort James and the Bay Chimo, a distance of 350 miles. .Thus the three vessels formed an unbroken chain the w r est and east coasts of Canada and achieved one of' the principal purposes for which the Hudson’s Bay Company was formed 259 years ago. The gale that drove the Fort James ashore was partly responsible for tlie rescue .of the McAlpine party. Equipped with a radio, she was able to communicate, with the radio operator of the Department of Marine at Fort Churchill. .Radio telephonic communication was established for the first time between the eastern arid western shores of Canada, from two Hudson’s Bay Company ships, tlie N .scopie at P#nd’s Inlet and the Fort James.