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.
Sightings
- A few days after the Baychimo had disappeared on 24 November 1931, the ship was found 45 mi (72 km) south of where she was lost, but was again ice-packed.
- After several months, she was spotted again but about 300 mi (480 km) to the east.
- In March of the following year, she was seen floating peacefully near the shore by Leslie Melvin, a man traveling to Nome with his dog sled team.
- A few months after that, she was seen by a company of prospectors.
- March 1933, she was found by a group of Eskimos who boarded her and were trapped aboard for 10 days by a freak storm.
- August 1933, the Hudson's Bay Company heard she was still afloat, but was too far a-sea to salvage.[2]
- July 1934, she was boarded by a group of explorers on a schooner.
- September 1935, she was seen off the Alaskan coast.
- November 1939, she was boarded by Captain Hugh Polson, wishing to salvage her, but the creeping ice floes intervened and the captain had to abandon her.
- After 1939, she was seen floating alone and without crew numerous times, but had always eluded capture.
- March 1962, she was seen sailing 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 the Baychimo.
- In 2006, the Alaskan government began work on a project to solve the mystery of "the Ghost Ship of the Arctic" and locate the Baychimo, whether still afloat or on the ocean floor. She has not been found yet.