Maud (ship) - Career and Fate

Career and Fate

She lived up to her christening, for she lies still in the ice. Whereas other vessels used in Amundsen's polar explorations,Gjøa and Fram, have been preserved at the maritime museum at Bygdøy, Maud had a more rugged fate.

After sailing through the Northeast Passage, which did not go as planned and took six years between 1918 and 1924, she ended up in Nome, Alaska and in August 1925 was sold on behalf of Amundsen's creditors in Seattle, Washington.

The buyer was the Hudson's Bay Company which renamed her Baymaud. She was to be used as a supply vessel for Company outposts in Canada's western Arctic. However, in the winter of 1926 she was frozen in the ice at Cambridge Bay, where she sank in 1930.

The ship now lies just off the shore in the bay, across the inlet from Cambridge Bay's former Hudson's Bay Company store. Nearby is the Cambridge Bay LORAN Tower built in 1947.

Prior to her final voyage the Baymaud was given a refit in Vancouver, British Columbia. The work was supervised by Tom Hallidie, who later went on to design the RCMP vessel St. Roch, based on the Maud.

In 1990 the ship was sold by the Hudson's Bay Company to Asker with the expectation that she would be returned to the town. Although a Cultural Properties Export permit was issued, the price tag to repair and move the ship was 230 million kroner ($43,200,000) and the permit expired.

In 2011 Norwegian company Tandberg Eiendom AS in the project Maud Returns Home announced a plan to return the Maud to Norway. They intend to build a new museum in Vollen, Asker to house the ship and say that they have already purchased a barge to move it. Concern about the plan has come from the community of Cambridge Bay, Parks Canada, the Government of Nunavut, the International Polar Heritage Committee as well as some people in Asker. Moving the ship would require another export permit from the federal government. On 15 December 2011, it was announced that the Government of Canada had declined to issue an export permit. The refusal was given due to the lack of "a full archeological study". The decision was reversed on appeal in March 2012, and salvaging is expected to start in 2013, after a survey.