![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
NorthEast Passage
Jan. 7th, 2005 10:22 amSeems like everyone learns about the quest for the NorthWest Passage in school - where various explorers tried to find a watercourse through the North American continent as a quick way to the East Indies and the spice trade. I started reading a book this week called Nathaniel's Nutmeg that is about the early spice trade (and specifically and island named Run) and was astounded to fine that there was also a 16th and 17th century quest for a NorthEAST Passage. From the time of Henry VIII on up through the 1600s ships tried to find a way to sail OVER the North Pole from Europe to reach the spice islands of the Pacific.
Now this just seems like utter nonsense to me, and made me appreciate the Renaissance/Early Modern mindset as never before. Columbus setting out with his three ships to sail West to get East just makes sense - he's an intelligent person with a firm grasp on reality and the people who thought he would sail off the edge of the world are just ignorant and superstitious - right? But to think of someone heading north to get south, and thinking they could sail over the North Pole in wooden ships, that's just crazy, ridiculous - right? What strikes me hard is that to the people of the times, BOTH voyages seemed either equally nonsensical or equally workable. It's easy to look backward and see the sense of one and the utter impossibility of the other.
Makes me wonder what "modern" notions about space, time, science, etc. our great-grandchildren will look back on with horror and incredulity?
Now this just seems like utter nonsense to me, and made me appreciate the Renaissance/Early Modern mindset as never before. Columbus setting out with his three ships to sail West to get East just makes sense - he's an intelligent person with a firm grasp on reality and the people who thought he would sail off the edge of the world are just ignorant and superstitious - right? But to think of someone heading north to get south, and thinking they could sail over the North Pole in wooden ships, that's just crazy, ridiculous - right? What strikes me hard is that to the people of the times, BOTH voyages seemed either equally nonsensical or equally workable. It's easy to look backward and see the sense of one and the utter impossibility of the other.
Makes me wonder what "modern" notions about space, time, science, etc. our great-grandchildren will look back on with horror and incredulity?
