The storied deep-water route from the North Atlantic to the Arctic Ocean called
the Northwest Passage was actually first negotiated by the British ship Octavius
sometime before August 12, 1775. At the time the Octavius was spotted at
Greenland by a whaling ship. Her captain and crew had probably been dead for 13
years, ever since she froze in the ice off Point Barrow, Alaska, in November
1762 with no supplies to last the winter. Year by year, as the ice melted and
packed her in again, the ghost ship sailed eastward until the dead explorers
reached their final destination.