SS Manhattan (1962)

For other ships of the same name, see Manhattan (ship).

The SS Manhattan was an oil tanker constructed at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, MA that became the first commercial ship to cross the Northwest Passage in 1969. For this voyage, she was refitted with an icebreaker bow. Registered in the United States at the time, she was the largest U.S. merchant vessel as well as the biggest icebreaker in history.

1969 Northwest Passage transit

The Manhattan's route began on the east coast of North America and transited the passage from east to west via the Baffin Sea and Viscount Melville Sound. Heavy sea ice blocked the way through McClure Strait, so a more southerly route through Prince of Wales Strait and south of Banks Island was used. One single token barrel of crude oil was loaded at Prudhoe Bay and then the ship went back. She was escorted by the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker CCGS John A. Macdonald.

This route through the Northwest Passage was quite controversial in international relations as sovereignty of these waters is claimed by Canada and this claim has been disputed by the United States. The Government of Canada has defined all waters in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago as being "Canadian Internal Waters."

The voyage prompted passionate discussions in Canada about that country's sovereignty in the Arctic, a topic which dominated Arctic policy formulated under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's administration throughout the 1970s. At one point during the voyage, Inuit hunters stopped the vessel and demanded that the vessel master ask permission to cross through Canadian territory, which he did, and they granted. The Canadian sovereignty debate generated by the Manhattan is being rekindled as multi-year decreases in sea ice, often attributed to global climate change, makes further ship transits likely in the future. The question is whether the passage can be considered an international strait or not.

The official reason for the voyage revolved around oil which had been discovered at Prudhoe Bay in 1968. Oil companies reasoned that sea transport of oil by icebreaking supertankers would be cheaper than the building of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System to Valdez. A second attempt to cross the passage in winter proved impossible, and there were numerous environmental concerns with the project, so it was cancelled and the Trans-Alaska pipeline built.

See also

• Territorial claims in the Arctic
• Northern Sea Route
• Double acting ship

References

• Bern Keating, Tomas Sennett, Through the Northwest Passage for Oil, National Geographic Magazine, Vol 137, no 3, March 1970.
• "On Thinning Ice," podcast by Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia, September 2006

External links

• Report about the SS Manhattan
• Report about crossing the north west passage
• The First Arctic Tanker Article in the magazine of the American Bureau of Shipping, summer 2005, pages18-22, (PDF)
• US State Department Memorandum 367 on Arctic Soveriegnty and the Manhattan, 1970