Gjøa was the first vessel to transit the Northwest Passage. With a crew of six, Roald Amundsen traversed the passage in 1906. The whole voyage took over three years.
The 70ft ship was build in 1872 in Rosendal, Norway and used in the fishing trades for the first 28 years before Amundsen bought it in 1900 to use on his arctic expedition.
The expedition crew (in addition to Amundsen) were Godfred Hansen, Helmer Hanssen, Anton Lund, Peder Ristvedt, Gustav Juel Wiik and Adolf Henrik Lindstrøm.
They sailed off from Oslo on June 16, 1903, and after sailing between continental Canada and the south shore of Victoria Island, Gjøa reached Nome, Alaska on August 31, 1906. It sailed on to San Francisco where it arrived to a hero's welcome on October 19.
On their journey the expedition made several measurements to determine the location of the magnetic north pole.
Gjøa was later bought by a Norwegian-American community and handed over to the city of San Francisco in 1909. There it was put on exhibition in Golden Gate Park. In 1972 Gjøa was brought back to Norway, and is now placed in the Norwegian Seafaring Museum in Oslo.
