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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 21 2015, @11:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the Henry-Hudson-was-ahead-of-his-time dept.

Beneath the Aurora Borealis an oil tanker glides through the night past the Coast Guard ice breaker Amundsen and vanishes into the maze of shoals and straits of the Northwest Passage, navigating waters that for millennia were frozen over this time of year.

Warming has forced a retreat of the polar ice cap, opening up a sea route through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans for several months of the year.

Commander Alain Lacerte is at the helm as the vessel navigates the Queen Maud Gulf, poring over charts that date from the 1950s and making course corrections with the help of GPS.

[...] Today, taking this route cuts 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) off a trip from London to Tokyo, saving time and fuel.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2015, @03:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2015, @03:41PM (#252802)

    (applause) came here to say the same thing.