1584-1622

English Navigator, Ship Pilot, and Explorer

While searching for the elusive Northwest Passage, William Baffin made important discoveries about the geography of the northern reaches of the New World. During two of his most noteworthy expeditions—both with explorer Robert Bylot as commander—Baffin searched the waters now known as Hudson Bay or Baffin Bay for entrances to the Northwest Passage, which would connect the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. One of his expeditions with Bylot led the men and their crew to within 800 miles (1,287 km) of the North Pole—the northernmost point ever reached in the Canadian Arctic. The record stood for more than two centuries. Baffin's exploits in the Canadian Arctic are now immortalized in the names of Baffin Bay and Baffin Island.

Baffin was born around 1584 in or near London, but little else is known of him until he took the position...