Martin Frobisher led his small fleet in search of the “Straight of Anian” only to experience a close encounter with the Inuit people of Frobisher Bay.
23 - Frobisher sails into the unknown
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Why search for the Northwest passage?#
Securing funding for Frobisher’s voyage to search for a north-west passage to the Pacific Ocean was proving to be very difficult. As no concrete evidence was available that this route existed, speculators needed good reasons to back a venture that could potentially ruin them.
Current maps made available to English navigators showed the known world, but they were full of fictional places and equally fictional distances. They were as much guesswork as factual. Unknown parts of the world, such as the northern coastlines of North America, appeared as vast blank areas on these maps.
Nevertheless, English merchants began to wonder if a route to Asia existed across the top of North America. After all, they had discovered and then exploited a route across the top of Europe to Muscovy (current Murmansk and the White Sea down to Moscow).
Martin Frobisher was one of the first - if not the first - Englishmen to offer his services to find a passage to the Pacific Ocean using a north-western route. The idea circulated amongst the English merchants of London, especially the Muscovy Company, until a key member of this company - Michael Lok - took it up as his own project.
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23 - Frobisher sails into the unknown