Starting in July, 1986, dressed in high-tech diving suits and mountaineering gear, Jeff MacInnis and photographer Mike Beedell sailed, dragged and slid their 450-pound catamaran, The Perception, through the brutal high-Arctic environment. An enthralling story of struggle and survival. HC: Random House (Canada).

Across the Top of the World is a tale that rivals the story of Antarctic exploration for heroism, drama and tragedy. In the great age of Exploration, the quest for the fabled Northwest Passage lured bold adventurers to the icy Arctic. They risked and sometimes lost their lives in search of a sea route across the top of the world, connecting Europe with Asia and its riches. This spellbinding saga of Arctic exploration is brought to life by quotations from grim first-hand accounts and by dramatic images, ICC colour and 100 black and white. These paintings, engravings and photos of the intrepid men and their ships, as well as of relics and archaeological sites, provide a poignant and compelling link with the past. Landscapes and seascapes of the harsh yet beautiful Arctic illustrate the challenges that faced explorers. The Inuit, the native people of the Arctic, lived in isolation until Europeans began to arrive in the sixteenth century, and relations were not always cordial. For centuries, nations sent out expedition after expedition to search for the Northwest Passage, each one suffering extreme hardship. The most tragic was the mysterious loss of Sir John Franklin, his 128 men and two ships in the 1840s. Attempts to sail the dangerous, icy maze of the passage ended in defeat until Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen succeeded in 1903-1906. Then, in the 1940s, to assert Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner, St. Koch, became the second vessel to conquer the passage. This set the stage for the modern phase of Arctic exploration utilizing icebreakers and American nuclear-powered submarines. James Delgado writes with the passion and authority of an underwater archaeologist and historian who has taken part in Arctic expeditions.

The Northwest Passage was repeatedly sought for over four centuries. From the first attempt in the late 15th century to Roald Amundsen's famous voyage of 1903-1906 where the feat was first accomplished to expeditions in the late 1940s by the Mounties to discover an even more northern route, author Alan Day covers all aspects of the ongoing quest that excited the imagination of the world. This compendium of explorers, navigators, and expeditions tackles this broad topic with a convenient, but extensive cross-referenced dictionary. A chronology traces the long succession of treks to find the passage, the introduction helps explain what motivated them, and the bibliography provides a means for those wishing to discover more information on this exciting subject.

In 1755, Robert Rogers is a brash young frontiersman from New Hampshire’s wilderness who is determined to find the Northwest Passage. Captivated by hearsay lore and his daring dream, Rogers wants nothing more than to walk over the horizon and never come back. While on a hunting expedition one day, Rogers encounters a reverend and his daughter, Hannah Dunbright, who are seeking shelter from the unforgiving wilderness. He invites the pair back to his cabin, where he realizes that he and Hannah share a mutual attraction. But on the day they share their first kiss, Hannah and her father are kidnapped by Captain Andre Durantaye, a cunning French-Canadian coureur de bois. Meanwhile Rogers, who believes he has lost Hannah forever, attends a governor’s ball, where he meets Elizabeth Browne, a friend of Hannah’s; it seems she also has her eyes on the frontiersman. As events unfold, one of the women betrays him and the other seeks revenge--the consequences of the tempestuous love triangle. In this epic story of love, betrayal, and redemption, a young explorer embarks on an audacious and dangerous quest to fulfill his dream amid the British struggle for empire and revocation.

These essays trace the history of the British search for the Northwest Passage – the Arctic sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans – from the early modern era to the start of the nineteenth century.

Autobiography.

Dodging between the Arctic floes, almost crushed several times, the little RCMP vessel St. Rochwas the first ship to conquer the hazardous Northwest Passage from west to east. Two years later, in 1944, she did it from east to west. Arctic Workhorseis a biography of St. Roch, from her construction in Vancouver in 1928, through her working life and famous voyages, to her resting place at the Vancouver Maritime Museum.