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1904 map of northern Canada showing the area of the Passage

The Northwest Passage is a long-sought water route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans north of the North American mainland. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, European explorers, particularly the British, made numerous attempts to discover such a route north and west, through (by river) or around (by sea) North America. Captain John Smith, for example, sailed up the Chesapeake Bay from Jamestown in the early 1600s looking for a river that led to the Passage, but by the early 1800s expeditions by Samuel Hearne and Lewis and Clark had proved there was no navigable water route through the continent of North America, so the theory was shifted northward, to be an all-sea route through the Arctic Archipelago around the north of Canada. The earliest of the explorations were based on a mixture of legend, conjecture, and wishful thinking, but later expeditions built on what was learned and gradually extended their maps, at first of North America itself and then of Arctic America in particular. [ more... ]

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 === Article of the Week <font size=1>[ [[CZ:Article of the Week|about]] ]</font> ===
-[[Image:img_0105-33percent-cropped-q75-500x375.jpg|right|160px]]
-;[[Literature]]
+[[Image:northerncanmap.jpg|right|150px|1904 map of northern Canada showing the area of the Passage]]
-Unlike scholars in certain fields of learning, such as [[biology]], where the boundaries are fairly well defined, those in the field of '''[[literature]]''' still debate exactly what the term means.
+The '''[[Northwest Passage]]''' is a long-sought water route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans north of the [[North America|North American]] mainland.  Between the 16th and 19th centuries, [[Europe|European]] explorers, particularly the [[United Kingdom|British]], made numerous attempts to discover such a route north and west, through (by river) or around (by sea) North America.  Captain [[John Smith]], for example, sailed up the [[Chesapeake Bay]] from [[Jamestown, Virgina|Jamestown]] in the early 1600s looking for a river that led to the Passage, but by the early 1800s expeditions by [[Samuel Hearne]] and [[Lewis and Clark]] had proved there was no navigable water route through the continent of North America, so the theory was shifted northward, to be an all-sea route through the Arctic Archipelago around the north of [[Canada]].  The earliest of the explorations were based on a mixture of legend, conjecture, and wishful thinking, but later expeditions built on what was learned and gradually extended their maps, at first of North America itself and then of Arctic America in particular.  <font size=1>[ [[Northwest Passage|'''more...''']] ]</font>
-When the celebrated 1911 ''[[Encyclopaedia Britannica]]'' defined literature as “the best expression of the best thought reduced to writing,” few dared question it. Now, though, a century of such questioning has broadened the definition so that it can include nearly any [[text]] in any human [[language]], even works in other media. Practically speaking, literature’s present-day definition is shaped by the perspective from which one regards it: scholars of a theoretical bent see it as embedded in questions of race, class, and gender, and highly variable over historical time, while those more aesthetically inclined tend to emphasize its continuity within traditions of [[arts]] and [[humane letters]]. One perspective typically mistrusts the other.
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