Open for Buisiness

It was going to happen sooner or later, but now they've announced that the fabled northwest passage, the route between the Atlantic and the Pacific that goes over North America, has opened for the first time after all the centuries of explorers trying and failing to find a way through the ice. The reason, you guessed it, is our old friend global warming.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6995999.stm

This raises an interesting point. If people can suddenly get between the two oceans without having to go through the Panama Canal and paying the extortionate fees associated with it, should one have to pay someone else for the pleasure? Funnily enough, Canada thinks you should. Everyone else thinks you shouldn't. Cue lots of international wrangling and lawyers lining their pockets.

But in my mind the more important question is what bizarre maritime rituals are people going to invent for first-timers doing this, akin to the treatement administered to hapless new recruits and postdocs get when they do things like the equator, the international date line, the Panama, Suez and Kiel canals etc. Only time will tell on that one...