Baychimo: Arctic Ghost Ship

by Anthony Dalton

No vessel that sailed the Arctic seas has raised so much speculation or triggered imaginations as has the legendary Hudson's Bay Company ship Baychimo.

In the 1920s, Baychimo set up trading posts in eastern Canada, sailed on fur-trading expeditions to Siberia during the turbulent years of the Russian civil war and made dangerous annual voyages around Alaska to Canada's western Arctic coast, shouldering her way through ice floes to resupply the HBC's remote trading posts. Anthony Dalton digs deep to unveil the incredible tale of the hardy ship and her sometimes irascible captain, Sydney Cornwell, bringing to life the larger story of the community of northern traders, hunters and sailors of which Baychimo was a part.

This ship's story had a remarkable twist. Caught in 1931 in an ice floe that refused to let go, her crew expected her to sink at any moment, and abandoned ship. But Baychimo was as stubborn as the ice, and she floated away unharmed to begin what would prove to be the longest phase of her seemingly charmed career: for the next four decades she would appear on the horizon at unexpected times and places, always defiantly upright and afloat, becoming the legendary ghost ship of the Arctic.

Genres: History

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

Reviews

[Bruce Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like ships (especially ghost ships), and the back-story behind them, then this book is for you.

Baychimo is a well-researched history of one of the Hudson's Bay Company's most famous steamers, used to trade around the world. The author has clearly spent a great deal of time gleaning ship logs and other sources to put together a comprehensive and fascinating story.

I learned a great deal about everything from Canadian history to how the HBC named their vessels to what it was like to work on one of these trading steamers.

[Ak · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars for entertainment value. 5 stars for information value.

[Peter Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d say 3.5 stars. The author has a gift for the story when he is inspired. I wished for some more comprehensive diagrams when Dalton was explaining the northern currents later in the book. I will have to research more myself. One disappointment later in the book, is that the really detailed accounts of sightings were barely credible and opined as such by the author. The first accounts of the yearly North American Arctic voyages were a bit drab as they indeed were in real life, and as they are almost solely based on ship’s logs; but it sets up the climactic summer voyage of the story very well! I could not put it down when the author portrayed Baychimo’s final “summer” in the Arctic.
The life of the Arctic mariner was fraught with danger, stress and insanely hard work!
I will look for more of Dalton’s work, I enjoyed his writing immensely!