The name of the boat we've chartered for the expedition is Hanse Explorer. It is named after the Hanseatic League, an alliance of trading cities and merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe in the 13th through the 17th centuries. An alliance in the late middle ages that lasted 400 years. What principles might have kept it together for so long?
Peter Schuster, a German boat captain living in Montreal, called me about an old book he has about the league.