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| Institution(s): |
Canadian Museum of Civilization
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| Year created: | 1999 |
| Coverage dates: | 1576-1584 |
| Description: | Elizabethan Englishmen saw the Arctic as a possible path to the riches of the Orient, bypassing the southern routes from which Spanish and Portuguese merchants were gaining so much wealth.
In 1576, soldier and adventurer Humphrey Gilbert published a pamphlet titled A Discourse of a Discoverie for a New Pasage to Cataia. He set out the evidence for a Northwest Passage to Asia across the top of North America, and described the commercial advantages for opening such a trade route. Not only could England become wealthy through trade in gold, silver, precious stones and spices, but it could settle the newly discovered strait with "such needie people of our Countrie which now trouble the common welth, and through want here at home, are enforced to commit outragious offences, whereby they are dayly consumed with the Gallows."
A group of London merchants formed a plan of sending Martin Frobisher to find the Northwest Passage on their behalf.
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| Audience(s): | general |
| Language(s) of exhibit: | English, French |
| Copyright information: | Copyright Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation. |
| Subjects: |
Explorers and Exploration
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