SS Baychimo | The Ghost Ship of Alaska and The Arctic|

In 1933 a group of Inuit people found a cargo ship just drifting on the coast of Northern Alaska they decided to explore the abandoned vessel to find any valuable inside as soon they went in, the winds began to get violent from nowhere dragging them inside. As the arctic winds rage outside the small group has nothing to do but decided to listen to the ghostly groans of the ship as she ground against the shifting ice. When the storm finally passed 10 days later they fled and never looked back. The phantom ship would soon vanish and mysteriously emerge numerous times all over the Beaufort sea for three and a half decades.

The SS Baychimo was originally launched in Sweden in 1914. Her original name was 'Angkorman Elephant' after the Swedish river her original owners are German and we were used as a trading vessel between Hamburg and Sweden through the First World War she was relatively modest in size at that ship. She weighed about 1,322 Tons with over a length of 230 Feet she was relatively powered by the Triple Expansion Engine and could achieve a speed of 10 knots. After the war, she was handed over to the British for War Reparations in 1920. She left the Baltic Sea for the last time and was purchased in London by the Hudson's Bay Company for 15,000 Pounds (20,000 USD) and was renamed Baychimo. Her first Voyage with the Company took place in 1921, in the Eastern Arctic the next year, and was later sent to Siberia with her new Captain Sydney Cornwell he would remain a Captain for the Rest of the Ships Career. The Baychimo would spend the rest of her two years trading Fur to Siberia. But political tensions with Russia soon led the Hudson's Bay Company to withdraw from the Area in 1924 and soon she would begin operating in the Western Arctic traveling between Vancouver and Hadson's Bay Company posts along the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Baychimo would eventually complete nine difficult voyages in the area carrying Cargo and Furs. And she was manned by 32 Crew members and would occasionally carry passengers. Every winter she would back to her homeport Drawstron, Scotland. She would return to Canada she would pass by the Panama Canal. In 1924 she would also travel through the Suez Canal successfully circumnavigating the globe but her luck on these Dangerous voyages would soon run out. The Baychimo experienced treacherous weather conditions in her 1931 season. She would frequently find herself mired in fog and heavy ice throughout the summer, by late September as she passed by the seashore islands nearby Northeast Alaska. The SS Baychimo encountered an unexpected blizzard her crew was forced to anchor the ship and the storm passed but by October 1st conditions continued to worsen and the Baychimo later found herself stuck in heavy packed ice. Comprehending the situation, the crew has to abandon the ship and traveled half a mile through the snow to the town of Barrow where they would shelter for the next two days. When they returned to the Ship they found that it had broken free from the ice and had sustained heavy damage in the storm and it was immediately clear to the crew that the ship would be impossible to sail safely further southwest. Her crew decided that they have to stay in the area to watch over her through the winter, but on October 8th, the Situation became more out of hand when the ship once again became mired in the ice this time much more thoroughly before, on the 15th, The Hudson's Bay Company sent an aircraft to retrieve their crew. But Captain Cornwell and 14 Others refused to leave their ship behind the company provided them with provisions to last to the winter and they constructed a crude temporary shelter nearby they wouldn't dare to live onboard the ship it was impossible to keep the large vessel heated and the shifting ice Threatened to sink her in any moment. Over the next few days, they performed daily maintenance on the ship mainly clearing the ice from the rudder to prevent further damage but their routine was cut short when on November 24th a blinding storm struck the area and when it finally cleared the Baychimo was nowhere to found Captain Cornwell and his crew thought that the strong currents of the storm must have sunk the damaged vessel. They headed back to Barrow and awaited transport to Vancouver but to their surprise, an Inuit seal hunter spotted the vessel a few days later trapped in ice near Skull Cliff some 45 Miles where Captain Cornwell and his crew tracked her down and concluded that the ship was far too damaged to safely to survive for the winter. They removed all of her remaining cargo and abandoned the ship for the last time and knowing that the ship would probably sink in the brutal icy waters of the Beaufort Sea. Captain Cornwell and his remaining crew were flown back to Vancouver soon after and the SS Baychimo has officially deemed a Loss the men went on their lives but later in the winter to everyone's surprise the ship was found 300 miles east of where she was originally abandoned and this would be one of the first mysterious appearances.

She was next spotted by a man named Leslie Melvin he was traveling to gnome with his dog sled team when he came across a floating SS Baychimo floating peacefully on the shore, a few months later she was spotted by a group of prospectors at first the sighting was an odd surprise but nothing too extraordinary in the area and still extremely treacherous it was not uncommon for ships overtaken by ice and abandoned by their crew. Usually, once a ship was abandoned she would succumb to the elements in a few days or weeks but occasionally one of these ships could a season or two before finally foundering. When the Baychimo appeared in the distance again and again over the next several month's locals didn't think much of it but as time went on and the derelict ship kept appearing stories and legends began to circulate that something supernatural was guiding the abandoned ship those who have seen her would claim that she was piloted by an unknown crew as she drifted away from the rocky shoals and other hazards that would challenge even manned vessels. In 1933 her legend grew when a group of Inuit people was forced to shelter inside her when a freak storm trapped them inside for 10 days. These strange events gave her a reputation as a cursed ship and later that summer. She was boarded by a small crew and passengers of the trader a small schooner that was on a research expedition that was to collect Alaskan and Arctic wildflowers after they finished exploring the ship, the ship simply vanished in the night, and throughout the remainder of their voyage the Baychimo would reappear several times just on the horizon seemingly like the ship was following them.

In November 1939 there was an attempt to salvage her by Captain Hugh Paulsen but his vessel was to take control of the larger Baychimo and this was the last recording of her board for the last time. The Baychimo was spotted several times in 1939 but she always evaded capture. Recorded sightings dramatically plummeted during World War II and in those years after it was assumed that she finally succumbed to her long-overdue fate and she was becoming less and less remembered. But then she was spotted by a group of Inuit people in March 1962 floating near the shore of the Beaufort Sea her last recording sighting of the ship was in 1969 and was drifting in a heavy pack of ice 38 years after she was originally left to sink. Tho she wasn't been spotted for decades her mystery continues to live on her unnatural ability to remain afloat unmanned in one of the most hazardous seas in the world continues to baffle Experts and in 2006 the Alaskan Government commissioned a project to solve her mystery but to date nothing has been found.

The Ship may have been Foundered and we may never know how the Mysterious Ship stayed afloat for 38 years. And is she still afloat? No one knows.

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