The Northwest Passage (NWP) is a set of marine routes between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, spanning the straits and sounds of the Canadian Archipelago, the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay in the east and the Beaufort Sea in the west. It is a transportation corridor channelled through islands occupying broad expanses of water and land in the north-south direction. However, different from its Russian counterpart, the Northern Sea Route, the NWP is seriously under-developed and under-investigated. It is believed that this phenomenon is due to an interplay of various factors such as the natural conditions of the NWP, a lack of infrastructures, the jurisdiction disputes, as well as the current Canadian political environment regarding land claims and reconciliation. This paper will provide a thorough review of the current status of NWP research and some discussion regarding the possible new research opportunities in this topic.
Dr. Changmin Jiang is currently an assistant professor in the Apser School of Business, University of Manitoba. His research involves various issues and aspects in transportation economics and policy, with focuses on the interaction between various parties in a transportation system and its policy implication for the regulator. Dr. Jiang’s work has been published in top tier journals such as Transportation Research Part B: Methodological; Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice; and Journal of Business Ethics. He has won several major research grants and awards supported by the federal government of Canada.
*Corresponding author
E-mail: changmin.jiang [at] umanitoba.ca