330-PSA-167-60 (USN 710775): This chart shows routes taken by the six expeditions which successfully completed passage through the Canadian Archipelago.  Marked in solid line is the USS Seadragon’s successful northern route announced today the Navy.  First to complete a passage was the Norwegian explorer Moald Amundsen (dot-dash track), whose 47 tone herring boat completed the east-west route south of Victoria Island in 1903-06.  Thirty-five years later, Sergeant H.A. Larsen, made the west-east trip in a Royal Canadian mounted police vessel also south of Victoria island, in 1940-42 (dash track).  In 1944, Larsen made the passage in the St. Roch in the opposite direction, (dotted track), along the route that Commodore O.C.S. Robertson, RCN, followed ten years later.  Finally, three U.S. Coast Guard ships, the Storis, Spar, and Bramble, followed the Larsen 1940-42, (dash track) west-east route through the archipelado,August 1960.  Master caption:  USS Seadragon’s Polar Voyage.  USS Seadragon become the first ship to negotiate the Parry Channel thorough the Canadian Archipelago.  Seadragon left Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on August 1, 1960 and went up the Greenland-Labrador slot through Davis Strait and Baffin Bay.  She entered Parry Channel August 15 at Lancaster Sound, proceeded through Melville Sound and McClure Strait to complete the channel passage August 21.  Once through the Archipelago, the Seadragon continued northward to the pole, and then to Honolulu, Hawaii, where she will report for duty with the Pacific Fleet Submarine Force around September 9, 1960.  The 2,360 ton ship is captained by Commander George P. Steele, II, USN.  During her polar transit, Seadragon performed a “first” by going under an iceberg 879 feet wide and 1,470 feet long and more than 300 feet deep.  The berg was located in Baffin Bay. (9/9/2015).
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