Last week brought the news that melting Arctic ice has opened up a new shipping route from China to the UK via a northeast passage along the north coast of Russia. 

Oddly enough, this development has a direct connection to our local history. Members of the famous Borough family of Northam were among the first to explore the route now being used by big container ships around the northern cape of what is now Norway as far as Archangel on the White Sea. 

In 1553, a pioneering fleet of three ships set out for the Archangel area. Two got trapped in ice and the accomplished navigator Stephen Borough was master of the only one to complete the voyage and return safely. The feat opened up an alternative route for trade with Muscovy (Russia) and it is likely that Devon ‘kerseys’ – woollen cloth – were among the goods which found their way to Moscow as a result of Borough’s brilliant navigational skills. 

Stephen’s brother William and his son Christopher were among those developing trade with the Tsardom of Russia. By 1579, Christopher Borough – born in Northam – was a competent Russian speaker and acted as interpreter on an amazing voyage of 10,000 miles which saw him traverse the whole of what is now Russia from Archangel to the Caspian Sea. 

The voyage started from Gravesend and followed the route that Stephen had opened up via the Arctic circle to Archangel. From there, the group transferred to smaller boats and travelled by river to Vologda. They then made their way overland to Yaroslavl, where they joined the mighty Volga river, sailing downstream for more than a thousand miles to Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea and from there to Baku in present day Azerbaijan. 

When Christopher returned home, he wrote an account of the voyage which was immediately published as one of the most significant English exploratory voyages of his day. 

It is evident that the Northam-born adventurer and navigator was also a learned man, interested in different languages and cultures. He brought back a copy of the orthodox catechism, which he had elegantly bound for Queen Elizabeth, and is believed to have been the copyist of another fascinating manuscript written in Russian which is today kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. 

As ships now start to use the Arctic route again, we should pay tribute to the ingenuity and bravery of the local men who explored it in considerably harsher climatic conditions.