English navigator John Davis appears to have…

English navigator John Davis appears to have first proposed to Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s "spymaster," his plan to find the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic to the Pacific; in 1585 he begins his first northwestern expedition.

Coming upon the icebound east shore of Greenland, he heads south, rounds Cape Farewell, and then sails northward along the coast of western Greenland.

Turning in what he thinks is the direction of China, he sails some distance up Cumberland Sound, which cuts into Baffin Island, but eventually turns back.