039 Northeast Passage

Northeast Passage is the name of the water route that connects Europe to the Pacific Ocean passing along the shouthern shores of the Arctic Ocean, north of the Asian Continent. It has been the subject of many exploration expeditions, among which the ones led by Willem Barentsz, and was finally navigated in its entirety in 1878 by Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld on the ship Vega. Nowadays the Northeast Passage is experiencing a lot of attention, due to a reduced ice cover, to technological edvances in shipbuilding and the economic incentives to find an alternative sea route joining the eastern Asian economies to Europe.