The Quest for the Northwest Passage: exploring the elusive route through Canada’s Arctic waters is the latest book by Ottawa writer L. D. Cross. It explores the explorers whose expeditions over 400 years across the top of North America were the equivalent of the 20th century Apollo Program to reach a foreign objective and return back home. The icy journeys of Europeans from John Cabot (1497), Jacques Cartier (1534), Martin Frobisher (1576), Henry Hudson (1611), William Baffin (1615), John Franklin (1845) and. Roald Amundsen (1905) to find ‘the passage around the pole’ are tales of disappointment, destruction and death.
The book also questions whether the Passage will be crude oil’s next toilet and suggests a name change to the Canadian Arctic Passage/Tallurutik, ideas expressed in op-eds published in Toronto, Windsor, London and Winnipeg. The book is part of the Amazing Stories series and Cross has previously written Ottawa Titans: fortune and fame in the early days of Canada’s capital and Spies in Our Midst: the incredible story of Igor Gouzenko, Cold War spy. Copies of The Quest for the Northwest Passage are available at local bookstores, Chapters/Indigo and at Amazon.ca.
