In the December 24th issue of The New Yorker, Keith Gessen wrote about the ice-class bulk carrier Nordic Odyssey, and its trip to transport sixty-five thousand tons of iron ore from Murmansk, Russia, to China via the Northern Sea Route—through the Arctic seas and down through the Bering Strait. There has been a drastic reduction in the extent and thickness of ice during the Arctic summer in recent years, and the Northeast Passage—for centuries an obsession of explorers, often with fatal results—could soon become an everyday part of merchant shipping. By the middle of this century, you may be able to traverse the Arctic in a canoe. See above for a video of the journey, and below for a slide show of photographs.