In the 1920s, the crew of 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.

Baychimo's history has a remarkable twist. In 1931, she became trapped in an ice floe that refused to let go. Expecting her to sink at any moment, her crew 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 unexpectedly on the horizons of unpredicted places. Always defiantly upright and afloat, Baychimo became known as the Arctic ghost ship.

-- Heritage House