The quest for the north-east passage had resulted in some unforeseen happy consequences for the British, such as the fur trade and whale fishing.
In 2011 a Russian supertanker, aided by two nuclear icebreakers, became the first such vessel to traverse the North-east Passage across the Arctic, hugging the Siberian coastline (Russians call it the "northern route").
Sailing along the coast of Siberia by the north-east passage, or Northern Sea Route (NSR), as Russians and mariners call it, cuts the distance between western Europe and east Asia by roughly a third.
Its names attribute it to the North-East passage to China; to the Barbary coast; to Cairo .It's Greek to me" is peculiar to English only in so far as Greek is fairly close to English.
The route, which used to be known as the North-east passage, runs along the Russian Arctic coast from Murmansk on the Barents Sea, along Siberia, to the Bering Strait.
Last month, the 74,000-tonne STI Heritage tanker passed through the North-east Passage with the assistance of ice breakers in just eight days on its way from Houston, Texas, to Thailand.
And then there is the North-east Passage, a sea lane between Asia and the US, which will ultimately open as the ice melts, providing an alternative to the Suez canal.
This gives would-be prospectors an interest in co-operating, not in adding to the risks and costs.The melting of the summer sea ice has also opened up trade routes between Asia and Europe via the top of the world; 71 cargo ships plied the north-east passage last summer, up from 46 in 2012.
In contrast, the conflict over "South-East Passage" (project BBPlG 5) escalated in 20142.
Fram left Vardø on 21 July, following the North-East Passage route pioneered by Nordenskiöld in 1878 79, along the northern coast of Siberia.
The ship did not drift over the North Pole, although in the course of the expedition it became the second ship to traverse the North-East Passage.
