Northeast Passage

The Northeast Passage (abbreviated as NEP) is an Arctic ocean shipping route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, traversing the Arctic following Russia's and Norway's coasts.

The NEP traverses (from West to East) the Barents Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, East Siberian Sea, and Chukchi Sea, and it includes the Northern Sea Route (NSR). The Northern Sea Route is a portion of the NEP; it is defined in Russian law and does not include the Barents sea and therefore does not reach the Atlantic Ocean. However, since the NSR has a significant overlap over the majority of the NEP, sometimes the NSR term has been used to refer to the entirety of the Northeast Passage.

The Northeast Passage is one of several Arctic maritime routes, the others being the Northwest Passage (going along Canada's and Alaska's coasts) and the Transpolar Route (going through the North Pole).

The Portuguese navigator David Melgueiro – according to some sources – would have made the first Northeast Passage complete crossing, from east to west, in 1660. The first confirmed complete passage, from west to east, was made by the Finnish-Swedish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, in 1878.

The motivation to navigate the Northeast passage was initially economic. In Russia, the idea of a possible seaway connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans was first proposed by the diplomat Gerasimov in 1525. However, Russian settlers and traders on the coast of the White Sea, the Pomors, had been exploring parts of the route as early as the 11th century.

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