Ghost ship - S. S. Baychimo I will be quoting from an article that ran in today's
Vancouver Sun. I found it interesting; there is no exact spot to post this in these
forums so I thought I would post it here.
The Title of the article is: "Reappearing ghost ship still a mystery."
The Alaskan
government is attempting to locate the last where abouts of the fabled "ghost ship of the Arctic." The steamer was a key player in the opening of Northern waterways with beginnings in 1920's; however in 1932 she was abandoned in an ice flow that locked her in. However after the abandonment, she became free and float around for decades with occasional sightings from time to time.
She was built in
Sweden in 1914 and acquired by the
Hudson Bay Company in 1919. The 1,300 tonne
steel ship set several long distance records during its annual 3,000 kilometre runs between
Vancouver and the North West Territories.
Each trip was dangerous and each year it had to escape the grip of the polar ice. In 1931, the
steel ship encountered one of the worst years for ice flow and she was caught.
The
Captain realizing he and his crew were in a "hard place" radioed for a
rescue and the first "air lift" from the Arctic unfolded. Twenty of the ships crew were flown out in two air craft. The crew decided to
winter in a close by coastal area and
rescue the ship in the spring as she freed herself from the icy arctic grip. A severe storm in late November free the ship and she disappeared.
In 1932 an arctic explorer caught sight of her as he was sledding across the arctic. The next year, Inuit hunters saw the ship and boarded it just as a storm approached encouraging them to leave. The ship was spotted again in September of 1935 and November of 1939 near Wainwright
Alaska. In 1962 another group of Inuit kayaking the
Beaufort Sea, sighted it.
And the last sighting was in 1969 when a US
oil tanker Manhattan was crossing the Northwest
passage, a party of Inuit said they spotted the SS Baychimo once again.