Henry Larsen (1899-1964)

Abstract

Henry Astrup Larsen was the first man to traverse the Northwest Passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic, beginning his historic voyage in Vancouver in 1940 and ending it in Halifax in 1942. Within two years of this major success, Larsen navigated the Passage from east to west, thus scoring another "first" by crossing the continent in both directions. In 1940, desirous of asserting its sovereignty over the Arctic Islands, the Canadian government entrusted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with the task of patrolling this barren, largely unexplored region of half a million square miles. Corporal Henry Larsen, captain of th R.C.M.P. schooner St. Roch and a 16-years veteran of the Arctic, was chosen as a key figure in this dangerous, ambitious, and politically expedient undertaking.