Northwest Passage: The Media and Most Bloggers Get it Wrong

Something interesting happened when the Northern summer 2007 ice cap tried to enter Guiness book of world records for the opening of the Northwest Passage: Guiness told the ice to check its history books!

The BBC dramatically reported on September 14 that: “The most direct shipping route from Europe to Asia is fully clear of ice for the first time since records began.”...The first time!!!! Really? How can they say that? They actually reported on September 10, 2000 that: “A Canadian police patrol boat has completed a voyage through the fabled Northwest Passage without encountering any pack ice.”...How many “first times” are there at the BBC? Is this the environmental equivalent being a virgin, again?

...The problem is that ships have sailed through the Northwest Passage before today and long before a police patrol did it in 2000. It has happened several times. The historically impassable route has been passed through numerous times for over a century now....Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen “became the first person to sail the entire Passage from east to west” and that was in 1906....The USS Storis made the journey in 1957 as this US Coast Guard history of the ship mentions....A Dutch businessman, Willy de Roos, 56, made a solo voyage through the Northwest Passage in 1977...a couple of Canadians, Mike Beedell and Jeffrey MacInnis, sailed through the Northwest Passage using a catamaran with wind power only. That was in 1988.

And in 1985 there was a diplomatic row between the US and Canada because the ship, the Polar Sea, was setting sail through the Northwest Passage and hadn’t asked Canadian permission....Even tourists on the M.V. Lindblad, a Swedish ship, have traveled through the Northwest Passage. They did it with luxurious food and in comfort. The trip was a 40 day trip from Newfoundland to Japan via the Passage and cost the tourists $16,000 to $22,000 in 1984!...The Lindblad made a second trip through the Passage in 1988...In 1977 another Canadian ship, with four Canadians, made the trip through the Passage as well. At one point of their trip they sailed together with the Dutch businessman who was making the solo trip. Source

Hat tip Climate Skeptic via Tom Nelson

If you want honest reporting about anything relating to science, politics, or just about everything else--you have to do the research yourself. The media jumped the shark a few decades ago, when it comes to honest reporting. Fortunately the web makes it easier to spot most of the rather obvious boneheaded mistakes generally made by the media.