Lewis and Clark were just a century or so too early. Remember one of the goals of the pair, sent out by Thomas
Jefferson, was not just to cross the continent, but also to find the Northwest Passage for the sake of an easier trade
route for east coast businesses. Well, they didn’t find it, partly because at the time it didn’t exist. But thanks to
global warming, sections once covered by ice have now opened up.
And so we have father and son team Ben and Brad Gray who are
out to do it by ocean. The boat they are on, a 57 foot powerboat called the Idlewild, will carry them for 16 months
as they sail around the world, part of it through the NW passage. The route takes them through the Northwest
Territories’ Slave and Mackenzie Rivers Northwest to the Arctic Ocean, and then along the Northwest Passage to
Greenland, Africa, Australia, Japan, Alaska, the western section of the Northwest Passage and back home to Canada.
Whew.