> I keep reading the statement that the Northwest Passage will be open
> this year "for the first time in human history", which can only be
> stated by people who can't bother to use google.
Where do you keep reading that?
Depending on what you mean by "Northwest Passage" and "open", it is open for at least a short interval almost every year, usually in August and early September. And it is open to icebreakers and ships that follow them every year for much longer periods.
More on topic for recent discussions is the opening of the McClure Strait, which is a much straighter, wider and deeper passage than the corkscrew path Roald Amnudsen discovered, but which is usually blocked with multi-year ice. McClure Strait was compleely open last year for a few weeks, is open already this year to ships with modestly ice- strengthened hulls, and might be completely free before the freeze-up restarts in September.