Grey was interested in the construction of a coastal railroad, establishing new seaports (including Port Nelson) and charting the waters of Hudson Bay.

CGS Earl Grey was built in 1909 in Barrow-in-Furness for the Saint Lawrence River winter service as an "icebreaking freight and passenger steamer".

Earl Grey was equipped with a clipper style Stanley bow, giving it a yacht-like appearance and its owners claimed it to be the "First Canadian ice fighting machine".

[6] Canada and another Canadian icebreaker, Lintrose (Sadko in Russian service) were key in extending the navigation season around Murmansk in 1914 to the end of January 1915, escorting a total of 146 British transports with military supplies.

However, on 19 February 1920, when a defeated Miller was evacuating the city, Canada and Ivan Susanin refused to cooperate with the white forces and stayed in Solombala harbor.

[8] Canada, now in the hands of local commissars who were leaning towards the Bolsheviks, was armed and sailed out to sea, becoming trapped in ice after chasing and intercepting a convoy on the morning of 21 February.

Canada retreated due to hull damage and the Bolsheviks blamed the failure on commissars Petrov and Nikolayev, who could have negotiated with the fugitives.

On 8 August a scout plane reported seeing impassable ice in the strait, and Litke turned north, heading to Herald Island.

On 23 January 1932, the government assigned Litke and a smaller icebreaker, Davydov, to guide Arctic convoys with over 13,000 tonnes of supplies, over 1,000 passengers and numerous small river craft, to the Kolyma settlements.

[12] Due to delays in Vladivostok, the convoy missed the optimal, calm period (June) and faced heavy storms in the Sea of Okhotsk.

Two 500-tonne welded barges towed by Litke suffered hull cracks as early in the voyage as the La Perouse Strait and had to be repaired in rough seas.

[20] Thus it was decided to relocate the transports to a safe winter anchorage in Chaunskaya Bay; however the short journey was plagued by increasingly heavier ice that damaged Litke's rudder on 26 September.

To save fuel, she moved in a start-stop manner, shutting down her boilers for days on end when ice density or fog forced her to idle.

[26] Meanwhile, the fleet in Chaun Bay finally unloaded their cargoes and on 16 August, Litke, along with Anadyr, sailed to Vladivostok, picking up other stranded ships on their way.

[28] At the same time SS Chelyuskin, attempting a single-season passage from Murmansk to Vladivostok, was stuck in ice in the same area, off Cape Koluchin.

On 10 October, Litke reached Cape Dezhnev in clear water, but the next day ice floes pushed it back, westward.

When Litke reached Cape Dezhnev again on 14 October, she suffered multiple hull cracks, a damaged rudder, lost propeller blades and most importantly, her right shaft was warped to the point that it rendered the right engine useless.

Five days later, however, a desperate Schmidt himself radioed Litke for help, hoping that an icebreaker and explosive blasting could clear a passage through three-quarters of a mile of thick ice.

Litke put to sea without a proper refit and in the next few days she was damaged to the point when the captain considered beaching her onto the Alaska coast to save his own crew.

Litke, assisting Smolensk and other transports south of Bering Strait, reached Petropavlovsk on 14 December, and after two weeks of makeshift repairs, finally sailed to Vladivostok for an overhaul, arriving there on 4 January 1934.

[29] In 1934, the icebreaker Fyodor Litke became a Soviet propaganda icon as the first vessel to pass the complete Northern Sea Route, east to west, in one season.

By the evening of 11 August, whilst she was manoeuvering among heavy floes, Litke spotted the masts and funnels of three trapped ships close to the Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands.

The freed freighters went their separate ways: Stalin followed Litke west to Arkhangelsk via Vilkitsky Strait while Volodarskiy headed east towards the mouths of the Lena and Pravda southwards to Nordvik.

Litke, under the command of captain Yury Khlebnikov and the overall management of Otto Schmidt, completed a purely military operation – clearing the Arctic passage for the destroyers Stalin and Voykov, dispatched from Kronstadt via the Northern Route to join the Pacific Fleet.

[42] Litke served the rest of 1941 in its principal function, guiding Arctic convoys in the Eastern sector (from the White Sea to Dudinka).

Sailing in the western Arctic could be as dangerous as in the Far East; for example, in February 1942 Litke failed to clear a passage to Indiga Bay and its convoy had to return to Iokanga, making it vulnerable to German air and submarine attacks.

[43] During Operation Wunderland, on 20 August 1942, the German submarine U-456 (Lt. Captain Teichert) tried to sink Litke off Belushya Guba in the Barents Sea by firing torpedoes at it, but was unsuccessful.

However, the threat of German submarines and bottom mines scattered in the shallow coastal passage caused a delay until the Navy could assemble an adequate defensive escort.

Despite an increasing submarine presence, Litke and Joseph Stalin sailed west from Tiksi to Arkhangelsk with a minesweeper escort, codenamed Convoy AB-66.

[47] In 1955, Litke set a world record by reaching 83°11', or only 440 nautical miles (810 km) from the North Pole "with normal propulsion and steering" and safely returning to her home port[45] (Fram went even further, to 86°14' – but was completely trapped in ice and unable to turn back).