As is evident from Letter I of Frankenstein, Mr. R. Walton is interested in arctic exploration. For instance, he says, "But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine" (6). One might ask why a person would be so interested in polar exploration in the early nineteenth century. Also, why would Mary Shelley bother to mention it in her novel? Hopefully the answers to these and other questions will soon become clear.
As it turns out, there are two major paths to Antarctica, the Northeast Passage and the Northwest Passage. Let us focus on the Northeast Passage, which is a was route to China around Siberia, first. The majority of the quests that sought this path were lead by Russia, for the simple economic reason that they wanted to increase the profits from its fur trade. By the late 1500’s, there was an established mercantile route through the Arctic to the fur-trading center of Mangazeya on the Taz River in Siberia. Russian trading ships regularly traveled between the Klyma and Lena islands, adjacent to the Arctic shore, by 1645. Three years later in 1648, the first European sailed what is now called the Bering Strait; his name was Semyon Dezhnyov. Dezhnyov’s excursion stimulated interest in Polar exploration in Russia. Hence, Peter the Great, the tsar at the time, approved several voyages. The Danish explorer, Vitus Jonassen Bering, made the most important discoveries. In 1724, Peter I made him the leader of an expedition to determine if Asia and North America were connected by land. On July 13, 1728, Bering set sail from Siberia, and in August he passed through the Bering Strait, named after him obviously, into the Atlantic Ocean. Inclement weather prevented precise investigation, and, though he was unable to see the North American coast, Bering concluded that Siberia and America were not joined.
During Empress Anna’s reign, Bering wished to make a second voyage. His simple plan was expanded into Russia’s Great Northern Expedition which lasted from 1733 until 1743. This campaign mapped out most of the Arctic coast of Siberia. On June 4, 1741, Bering again set sail from Siberia. On August 20, he entered into the Gulf of Alaska. Unfortunately on the way back, Bering acquired scurvy and was unable to maintain effective command. His ship wrecked in early November on the shore of Bering Island near Siberia, and many sailors, including Bering, were killed. After his death, a few survivors were able to reach Siberia and brought news of excellent fur-trading possibilities in the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. Thus, part of Bering’s distinction as hero stemmed from the fact that he was somewhat of a martyr as well.
A few other insignificant, and for the most part unsuccessful, voyages went on during the eighteenth century. These explorers included: Nikita Shalaurov; Captain James Cook; and Joseph Billings. The actual Northeast Passage was not discovered until 1823, when Lieutenant Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel successfully navigated and surveyed the Kolyuchin Bay, the missing link between Chaun Bay and the Bering Strait. Now, on to the Northwest Passage. Navigators began seriously searching for a water route from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the sixteenth century with Sir Martin Frobisher. Succeeding explorers include: John Davis; Henry Hudson; and William Baffin. Then, in 1768, Samuel Hearne set out on a two-year walking expedition, in which he made it to the shore of the Arctic Ocean, still he did not find a way through.
The passage eluded explorers through Mary Shelley's lifetime. In 1845, Sir John Franklin went on an excursion that ended in the deaths of all 129 men involved. In the 1850s, the passage was finally discovered by Sir Robert McClure, who led one of the forty search parties that sought information on Franklin's expedition. In turn, McClure's expedition was icebound for nearly two years, and was rescued by Captain Henry Kellett. Kellett's ship was in turn icebound for another year. Clearly, these explorers were not the luckiest of men. In any case, the Passage itself courses through the Canadian Arctic Islands approximately 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle and about 1,200 miles from the North Pole. The 900-mile east-west passage runs from Baffin Island to the Beaufort Sea making its way thousands of icebergs, and then into the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait, which again separates Siberia from Alaska.
Even after the Passage was discovered, it took another half century for a single ship to sail through it. Between 1903 and 1906, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen made the passage. Although the centuries-long search for the passage was inspired by the desire for a more efficient trading route, the first successful commercial navigation came only in 1969, after the discovery of oil in Alaska!