This month in 1962 one of the last appearances of a ship that would show up from time to time in the waters off the western coast of North American… decades after it was abandoned.
This was the S.S. Baychimo, which worked in the Arctic Ocean in the 1920s and 30s.
It covered trading routes, usually carrying furs and sometimes a few passengers.
Sailors didn’t exactly love the ship; one called it “a strange and disappointing craft.”
A captain once described it as “short, tubby, red.”
But it worked… at least until the fall of 1931, when Baychimo found itself stuck in pack ice just off the coast of northern Alaska.
The captain ordered the crew ashore; he radioed for an airplane to take most of them away.
He and the rest built huts near shore so they could wait it out until the ice cleared and they could sail again.
Except that in late November, there was a huge blizzard; the men stayed in their huts for three days, and when they came back out, their ship was gone.
They thought it was at the bottom of the sea, but Inuit people reported that Baychimo had simply blown further out to sea.
The crew was able to cross the ice on dogsleds to take some supplies, but then the ship disappeared again and they had to move on.
But once again, Baychimo didn’t sink, she just continued wandering the ocean on its own, and every few years someone would spot her and occasionally board her.
There were even a few attempts to bring the ship back toward land, but each time those efforts began, the ship would disappear again.
The last sighting was in 1969, when Baychimo was once again stuck in some ice.
That was 38 years after its last crew left for shore.
It’s possible that after that, the Baychimo really did end up sinking for good, with no more ghost ship sightings, no more boardings, no more salvage.
Or maybe it’s still out there somewhere, trapped in ice yet again?!?
Today in 1967, the state of Utah gained another state symbol.
The governor signed a piece of legislation that says, and I quote, “The dutch oven is selected and designated to be the state cooking pot of Utah.”
So if you thought Utah’s official cooking pot was a bean pot, think again!
Baychimo: The Adventures of the Ghost Ship of the Arctic (Manitoba Museum via Archive.org)
STATE COOKING POT (Utah.gov)
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Photo via Wikicommons
