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Greymouth Evening Star, 22 July 1936, Page 3

VANCOUVER, June 17

Th© ghost ship of the Arctie, the Hudson Bay Company s vessel, Bay chimo (pronounced “Bay-shimaw,,), has not appeared since 1933, two years after she was caught in the ice near Point Barrow, homeward bound to Vancouver, after delivering supplies to posts in the Western Arctic, and loading furs. Speculation is rife as to whether sirs has foundered, but many who come and go in the Silent Places believe she will reappear, as she did several times, inextricably fastened in the ice When the vessel caught, west ot

Barrow, her crew, composed mainlv of Scots from Vancouver, produced a football cud erected goal posts on me smooth, ne ice. During the game, their gaze wandered frequently to the funnel, hoping to see smoke streaking westward, under the beat of an offshore wind. Eskimos, with dog teams, appeared, shaking then h-<- •-> ever chances of liberation. A. ter tea on October 8, while a football game was in progress, a black line appeared in the middle of the field. r lhe ice pack commenced to push towards the beach Believing the ship would cave in, the players scrambled aboard put together a few belongings, and got ashore across the ice. Meantime, wireless messages wtie sent to London and Winnipeg, and ( aeroplapes were commissioned from Nome, six hundred miles to the south. It was the dreaded ‘-in-between ’ season tor flying in the Arctic, when machines await a mud ieeZC ” up to change from pontoons to .tnriae. of the sailors stir-

skis. Judge OL | prise when on October la. two aeroplanes made a perfect landing on th© icefield on wheels. The pilots, Victor Ross and Hans Mirow, wiote a new chapter of Arctic histoiy 11 several subsequent flights, brlngl “ g rut traders, officers, and crew, and tui cargo, valued at over 1,000,000 dollars. The airport at Nome was bare or snow. The two machines abutted back and forth over precipitious mountains, open sea and snow-covered barrens. Passengers and crew,

able to catch the last southbound steamer before navigation closed, but not before the airmen encounted blizzards and forced landings. Cantain Cornwell and fourteen men stayed by the Baychimo. They built a makeshift cabin on the beach with hatch covers, tarpaulins, and lumber torn from the lining of the vessel, ami denned up for five months with the cheerfulness of British sailors in adversity. In November came a severe three-day gale. No one dared go outdoors. When it subided, there was no sign of the Baychimo. Eater, an Eskimo runner reported her drifting north, safely embedded in the centre of a big ice-pan. So she drifted info the long Arctic light. in the following spring the airmen

took Captain Cornwell and his men to the railhead in the Alaska interior.