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SS Baychimo was a steel-hulled, 1,322 ton cargo steamer built in 1914 in Sweden and owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, used to trade provisions for pelts in Inuit settlements along the Victoria Island coast of the Northwest Territories of Canada.

She became a notable ghost ship along the Alaska coast, being abandoned in 1931 and seen numerous times since then until her last sighting in 1969.

Baychimo was launched in 1914 as Ångermanelfven by the Lindholmens shipyard (Lindholmens Mekaniska Verkstad A/B) in Gothenburg, Sweden, for the Baltische Reederei GmbH of Hamburg. She was 230 ft (70 m) long, powered by a triple-expansion steam engine and had a speed of 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph). Ångermanelfven was used on trade routes between Hamburg and Sweden until the First World War. After the war, she was passed to the United Kingdom as part of the First World War reparations by Germany for shipping losses and acquired by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1921. Renamed Baychimo and based in Ardrossan, Scotland, she completed nine successful voyages along the north coast of Canada, visiting trading posts and collecting pelts.

On October 1, 1931, at the end of a trading run and loaded with a cargo of fur, Baychimo became trapped in pack ice. The crew briefly abandoned the ship, travelling over a 1⁄2 mi (0.80 km) of ice to the town of Barrow, Alaska (now Utqiagvik) to take shelter for two days, but the ship had broken free of the ice by the time the crew returned. The ship became mired again on October 8, more thoroughly this time, and on October 15, the Hudson's Bay Company sent aircraft to retrieve 22 of the crew. On November 24, a powerful blizzard struck, and after it abated, they found no sign of Baychimo; the skipper concluded that she must have broken up and sunk in the storm. A few days later, however, an Inuk seal hunter informed them that he had seen Baychimo about 45 mi (72 km) away from their position. The 15 men proceeded to track the ship down, and deciding that the ship was unlikely to survive the winter, retrieved the most valuable furs from the hold to transport by air.

Baychimo did not sink, and over the next several decades, numerous sightings were made of the ship. People managed to board her several times, but each time, they were either unequipped to salvage the ship or driven away by bad weather. The last recorded sighting of Baychimo was by a group of Inuit in 1969, 38 years after she was abandoned. She was stuck fast in the pack ice of the Beaufort Sea between Point Barrow and Icy Cape in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern Alaskan coast.

A few days after Baychimo disappeared, the ship was found 45 mi (72 km) south of where she was lost, but was again ice-packed. In March 1933, she was found by a group of Iñupiat, who boarded her and were trapped aboard for 10 days by a freak storm. In August 1933, the Hudson's Bay Company heard she was still afloat but too far asea to salvage. In November 1939, she was boarded by Captain Hugh Polson in an attempt to salvage her, but the creeping ice floes intervened and Polson was forced to abandon her. In March 1962, she was seen drifting along the Beaufort Sea coast by a group of Inuit. She was found frozen in an ice pack in 1969, 38 years after she was abandoned. This is the last recorded sighting of Baychimo. In 2006, the Alaskan government began work on a project to solve the mystery of "the Ghost Ship of the Arctic" and locate Baychimo, whether still afloat or on the ocean floor.

"The ghost ship of the Arctic - the steamer Baychimo". Dalton, Anthony, Baychimo: Arctic Ghost Ship, Heritage House, 2006, ISBN 1-894974-14-X

Quick Facts

• She became a notable ghost ship along the Alaska coast, being abandoned in 1931 and seen numerous times since then until her last sighting in 1969.
• Baychimo was launched in 1914 as Ångermanelfven by the Lindholmens shipyard (Lindholmens Mekaniska Verkstad A/B) in Gothenburg, Sweden, for the Baltische Reederei GmbH of Hamburg.
• She was 230 ft (70 m) long, powered by a triple-expansion steam engine and had a speed of 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph). Ångermanelfven was used on trade routes between Hamburg and Sweden until the First World War.
• "The ghost ship of the Arctic - the steamer Baychimo".
• The last recorded sighting of Baychimo was by a group of Inuit in 1969, 38 years after she was abandoned.

Source material: Wikipedia - "SS Baychimo". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.