The recent discovery of one of the British explorer Sir John Franklin's abandoned ships, HMS Erebus, in the Canadian Arctic has awoken the popular memory an era of European expeditions to the North. Franklin and his crew set off on two ships in 1845 on an ill-fated voyage to chart the Northwest Passage — a long-sought-after sea route across the Arctic to China. An exhibition this winter at the British Library, Lines in the Ice: Seeking the Northwest Passage, presents a collection of books, maps, and images that document the European pursuit for the fabled trade route through the Arctic.
The exhibition begins in the 1500s. The Spanish and Portuguese controlled the southern sea routes to the East Indies, spurring northern European nations to find a northwest route to the wealth of the Far East. With each failed attempt, the legend of the Northwest Passage grew in public imagination, as shown by a map of the mythical island Thule on which great riches were believed to lie. In 1775, the British government offered a £20,000 prize to the discoverer of the Northwest Passage, a huge sum at that time.
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