Luminaire

185 pages. Abundantly illustrated in black and white. Recounts the voyage in 1944 of the St. Roch from Halifax to Vancouver via the Northwest Passage. While this was not the first time the passage had been traversed, the first passage by Amundsen took several years. The voyage of the St. Roch lasted only 86 days and took a more northerly route than that blazed by Amundsen. It was the first time that this shorter route - first attempted by William Parry in 1819; tried by other explorers in the nineteenth century (and later taken by the supertanker, Manhattan in 1969) - was successfully navigated. The St. Roch was a small wooden vessel only 104 feet long, constructed in 1928 by the Burrard Dry Dock Company in North Vancouver. In 1942 this vessel had become the first vessel to travel from the Pacific to the Atlantic through the Arctic Ocean. With the completion of its 1944 mission, the St. Roch became the first vessel to conquer the Northwest Passage in both directions. Light wear. Small bump to top of spine. Book