The first recorded explorers of the Arctic were the Norsemen who sailed from Norway to Iceland, Greenland, and North America by the mid-16th century, British and Dutch merchants and sailors began exploring the Arctic in search of a northeast passage to China and India. Although these explorers did not find the passage, they did learn more about the Arctic. These searches also opened up sea trade with Russia and led to the development of the whaling and sealing industries.

About the same time, other British explorers were searching for a northwest passage to Asia around the North Americac continent in 1576, Martin Frobisher sailed for the first time to Canada's Baffin Island. Within the next 40 years, Davis Srait, Baffin Bay, and Hudson Bay had been explored. Between the early 17th and 19th centuries the attention of merchants and explorers focused on developing land routes to support fur trade. As a result of these explorations, two British explorers, Samuel Hearne and Alexander Mackenzie, followed Canadian rivers northwest to the Arctic Ocean.

During the 18th and 19th centuries explorers continued to search for the Arctic for the elusive Northwest passage. This route was not found until the early years of the 20th century when Norway's Roald Amundsen became the first person to sail northwest from the Atlantic Ocean through the Arctic to the Pacific Ocean. His voyage lasted from 1903 to 1906.(Amundsen later led the first expedition to reach the South Pole of Antarctica).

Once the Northwest Passage was discovered, explorers turned their attention to the North Pole. During these expeditions much scientific information also was obtained, including data on sea ice and the Arctic Ocean collected by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen. In 1909, an American expedition led by Robert E. Peary successfully reached the North Pole for the first time.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, advances in techonlogy have expanded Arctic exploration. The first flight over the North Pole was accomplished by the American Richard E. Byrd in 1926. In 1958, the U.S nuclear powered submarine Nautilus became the first ship to reach the North Pole, by travelling under the Arctic ice. In 1977, the nucleared powered Soviet icebreaker Arktika was used to explore the frozen Arctic Ocean. Scientists completed a 7-year exploration project on the ecology of the Bering Sea in 1983.

Samuel Hearne's Expedition(Not from this site)