In the early 1900s, polar explorer Roald Amundsen led the first successful expedition across the Northwest Passage.
In the early 1900s, polar explorer Roald Amundsen led the first successful expedition across the Northwest Passage. The sinuous seaway winds through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and can dramatically shorten the journey between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Amundsen’s ship and crew emerged from the archipelago in August 1905 and entered what became his namesake, the Amundsen Gulf.
Even now, navigating the passage and gulf presents challenges. For example, sea ice still choked much of the gulf’s waters on June 9, 2025, when the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this image.
In this scene, some stationary sea ice remained “fastened” to the coastlines. Several chunks had broken free and were drifting west into the Beaufort Sea, continuing a process of breakup that had been ongoing for several months. Winds play an important role in the breakup, and warm summer temperatures will ultimately melt any fast ice that remains.
Read more at NASA Earth Observatory
Image: NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview.
