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Monument to the Voyage of the Belvedere Through the Northwest Passage

by John M. MacFarlane 2017

Plaque Monument

The plaque commemorating to voyage of the Belvedere under expedition leader John Bockstoce and vessel master Captain Sven Johansson. (Photo from the John MacFarlane collection. )

On the seawall of the Inner Harbour at Victoria BC there is a plaque commemorating the record setting transit of the Northwest Passage by the yacht Belvedere. The west to east transit took place 1982–1988. (She was the first sailing yacht to transit from West to East. (Navigation and command of vessel was under Sven Johansson. The expedition leader and vessel owner was John Bockstoce. They traversed Pond Inlet.)

John Bockstose

Expedition leader John Bockstoce (Photo from the John Bockstoce collection. )

John Bockstoce is an historian of the whaling industry with specialized knowledge of whaling in the Arctic. He is the author of several books and many scholarly articles. An avid sailor he has first–hand knowledge of the sea.

In 1966 John Bockstoce was a Special Assistant to the Secretary, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. In 1970–1971 he was the Assistant to the Director, University Museum University of Pennsylvania. In 1973–1974 he was a Visiting Tutor, in the Department of Ethnology and Prehistory, University of Oxford. In 1974–1986 he was the Curator of Ethnology, at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. In 1987 to the present (2012) he was the President, of the Thalassa Corporation. In 1980 he led an expedition consisting of an unnamed motorized Eskimo Umiak and a motorized canoe on a partial transit West to East from Point Barrow AK to Pond Inlet of the Northwest Passage. Later he was the leader and owner of the five–year expedition taking the yacht Belvedere (II) through a west to east transit of the Northwest Passage. He has rounded Cape Horn under sail and is attempting to sail a yacht through the Northeast Passage.


To quote from this article please cite:

MacFarlane, John M. (2017) The Monument to the Voyage of the Belvedere Through the Northwest Passage. Nauticapedia.ca 2017. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Monument_Belvedere.php

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