Sailing from Vancouver in 1940, a modest wooden schooner, named the St. Roch, made the first ever west to east crossing of Canada's north, although it took more than two years to complete the voyage. The harrowing tale is told posthumously by Sargent Henry Larsen, in an interview rarely ever seen before, and by the last surviving member of the crew. The search for the Northwest Passage was a high priority during the 19th Century, a carry over from the early explorers' quest for a quicker route to the riches of the Pacific. Explorer Roald Amundsen's conquest of the North only revealed the impracticality of its use. But during World War II, the Canadian government had other, more secretive, reasons to send a ship through the Passage - to establish sovereignty over the Dominion and ferret out suspected enemy radio bases. This was the ambitious mission of the RCMP's St. Roch under the command of Sgt. Henry Larsen, Canada's most accomplished Arctic navigator.