Henry Hudson’s Wild Tale
This Day In History — The Discovery of Hudson Bay and the Downfall of the European Who Named Her
Henry Hudson was an English explorer who was contracted by the Dutch East India Company (not to be confused with the East India Trading Company), to find the Northeast Passage in the early years of the 17th Century. Instead of finding success in the frigid waters north of Russia, Hudson went rogue and decided to search for the Northwest Passage instead.
Hudson’s mercurial nature, curiosity and disobedience to his charter and his crew would lead to his untimely demise, but not before he gets some of the greatest bodies of water in North America named after him.
Northeast vs. Northwest Passages
As global trade began to take off in the 17th Century, there was a massive interest in finding the fabled “passages”. These were thought to be shortcuts that could take traders to distant places around the globe in minimal time by skirting the top of the planet. Geographically, it makes sense. It is the same reason planes fly close to the arctic during long ocean-spanning journeys. It is the…
