I would like
to tell you the
story of my
grandfather, Harry
Bolton, and of his
life as a sailor. He worked for
many years for the
Hudson Bay Company
and he lived during
the early years of
the century at
Sunderland in the
north-east of
England. But at that time, the steamships destined for the Arctic left
once or twice a year
from the port of Ardrossan in Ayrshire, which
was then a thriving
seaport. To
avoid this rather
tiresome journey of
around four hundred
kilometres from
Sunderland to
Ardrossan, my
grandfather finally
decided, when my
father was only ten,
to move house to
Ardrossan where the
family lived from
then on in a
pleasant
semi-detached house
which still stands
today less than two
kilometres from my
own house.
The
business of the
Hudson Bay Company
was to hunt the
animals of the
Arctic, the
sea-lions, polar
bears etc., for
their furs and oils. The sailors who hunted them had to be really tough and
courageous to
withstand the very
severe weather
conditions. The journeys were always dangerous and could only be done
during the short
Arctic summer. During one
such voyage in 1925,
my grandfather was a
member of the crew
of the Bayeskimo when she became
blocked in the ice
and her hull was
crushed. All on board
had to be rescued by
another ship, the
ice-breaker Nascopie. A bit later on, my grandfather became chief engineer
of the 1,300 tonne Baychimo which successfully
completed nine
expeditions to the
company's trading
posts in northern
Canada.
For her next
voyage, she left as
usual from
Vancouver, in July
1931, passing
through the Bering
Straits and then to
the east to reach
the little trading
posts. At first, all
went well. During her
return trip in
October, however,
she became stuck in
the ice on the north
coast of Alaska,
quite near Point
Barrow and about
three kilometers
from the shore. When they realised that the ship was in danger of being
crushed, the crew
left her and crossed
the frozen sea on
foot to get to the
shore. There they
lived in temporary
accommodation,
with the outer walls
piled up with snow
and ice to keep in
as much heat as
possible.
It was there, in
full view of the
ship, that the captain and
sixteen of his crew,
including my
grandfather settled
down to await a
change in the
weather so that they
could free the Baychimo. There was no question of abandoning her with furs worth a
million dollars in
her hold! The other
twenty-two members
of the crew, in
response to an S.O.S.,
were uplifted
by plane, a
laborious procedure
as only three of
them could be
accommodated at a
time for the nine
hundred kilometer
flight to Nome in
western Alaska.
Those who
stayed were not
short of work. They had to
search for wood, as
they didn't want to
use the Baychimo's
coal, they had to
cross the ice to the
ship every day to
check on her
condition and even
collect ice from a
frozen lake five
kilometers from
their hut as the ice
which surrounded
them everywhere
didn't provide safe
drinking water! Towards
the end of November,
a violent storm
forced the men to
stay inside their
hut for three full
days, huddling
against one another
to keep warm around
the gasoline drum
they had converted
into a stove. But
afterwards, when the
snowstorm was
finally spent and
they dug themselves out
of the snow, imagine
their reaction to
discover that the Baychimo had completely
disappeared. Where she had
been three days
earlier, there were
only big icebergs!
Nevertheless,
life had to go on
for the men left
stranded in their
little cabin. Christmas
came along, then the
New Year. Finally, in
February 1932, the
captain and his crew
were uplifted from
their solitary
outpost. They were
flown to Vancouver,
from where my
grandfather made his
way back home to
Ardrossan by train
and ship. His great
adventure had come
to its end at last.
But that
certainly wasn't the
end of the story. The Baychimo wasn't yet beaten. The storm
which had carried
her away hadn't sent
her to the bottom of
the sea. In March
1932, a man
travelling by
dog-sled saw her
firmly embedded in
an ice floe. However that
was only the first
in a series of
sightings. In 1935 and
again in 1939, some
members of the crew
of the schooner Trader boarded her. They
discovered
navigational
instruments and
charts, kitchen
equipment in the
galley, curtains at
the porthole windows
and books in
profusion, including The
Times History of the
Great War. A veritable Marie
Celeste! She was often
seen by Eskimos and
ships' captains
during the Second
World War and she
was seen for the
last time in 1969,
this time not very
far from the spot
where she had been
abandoned so many
years before. By that time,
she was well
established as "the
ghost ship of the
Arctic"! As
for my grandfather,
since the day of Baychimo's
disappearance in
November 1931, he
never ever saw her
again.
It might seem
almost unbelievable
that any ship,
manned by phantoms
or men, could
survive the
incredible force of
the Arctic ice for
more than three
decades, but the Baychimo did just that, and
since in fact no-one
saw her sink,
perhaps she is out
there still !. . . .
. . . .
. . . . . .
. . . .
This
story is, of course,
true (except for the suggestion that Baychimo might be still out there!) and is
supported by
newspaper cuttings
and by an excellent
collection of
photographs which
have been handed
down to me by my
grandfather, who I
clearly remember. These
photographs show the
foundering of the Bayeskimo and the rescue of her crew, the departure of the Baychimo from Ardrossan, the
loading of supplies
at the trading posts
and the dramatic
incidents close to
Point Barrow. Most
of them were taken
by Baychimo second officer
Fred W. Berchem - who appears himself in some of the photos (see HBC Photos). He was a resident of Ardrossan, and it was he who provided me with the detailed descriptions for the photograph collection.
Alan C.
Bolton,
Saltcoats, April
1996
References:
"Merchant
Princes",
by Peter Newman. Penguin. ISBN
0-14-015820-0.
"Phantom
of the Arctic",
by Joan Biggar in
"The
Scots Magazine",
December 1979.
"The
Baychimo story
recalled",
by Harry C. Bolton,
an article in "The
Ardrossan &
Saltcoats Herald",
1954.
Baychimo - Arctic Ghost Ship, by Anthony Dalton
(ISBN 13: 978-1-894974-14-1 or ISBN 10: 1-894974-14-X)
