I'll try to keep politics out of this as much as possible, but pre WW2 times, people were running that passage all the time in wooden boats - not even icecutters. Even a
sailboat powered by nothing but wind almost made it completely through. Post WW2 up until a couple of decades ago, ice surface area/mass increased in the passage and it became far more difficult to cross (polar bear population skyrocketed at that time as well might I add
). "Open" is a misleading description, since the route is still very difficult to cross, even for today's modern icecutters. I try to keep an open mind about the whole natural vs man-made global warming thing, but this is a pretty silly thing to use as evidence in the case for man-made global warming. BBC is great and all, but the article is just another example of bad journalism.
