![]() ![]() For flatness, size and smoothness we could have our choice. Ice pans large enough to carry our crew down through Baffin Bay jostled us on all sides. Like a great octopus, those icy arms tightened round, holding us firmly. The second time it came up it was close enough to the ship for us to see that it was nearly as long as the Bowdoin, 70 feet at least.īut the ice field concerned us more than any whale. “That whale is as long as the Bowdoin,” said Don, when a tremendous black body bulged out of water. With no radio, lighthouses or fog-horns for hundreds of miles around, and only a few seals and two huge finback whales to entertain us, we felt awfully alone. Hundreds of ships had been destroyed there in September and October gales. We could easily be caught between the two great sections and carried off wherever Old Torngak, the Evil Spirit of the North, cared to take us. “If this wind hauls to the east,” said Mac drily, “it’ll divide the pack in two.” I knew what that meant. Mac estimated that it reached out from Baffin Land for at least a hundred miles, completely blocking our route home.įor hours we zigzagged in search of a good lead. The cause lay directly ahead – an ice field of tremendous proportions. The following morning, a chilly outlook greeted me when I stepped on deck although it was the middle of August. Was this a habit bred by some mysterious influence of the north, I wondered? I thought of Mac sailing away from me in the Thebaud before we were married. We watched these swarthy hunters of the North as they turned about and slowly paddled away.Īfter they had turned toward home they never looked back. Unable at last to keep up with our gathering speed, they ceased their efforts and, resting on their paddles, waved and shouted until we were well on our course. When we left the village behind, a dozen Eskimos (sic) escorted us out of the harbour in their kayaks, their silver wakes speckled with sunlight as they skimmed gracefully over a perfectly calm sea. In this extract, she describes how Mac works the Bowdoin through a potentially disastrous ice situation to see the ship safely home. Miriam MacMillan’s I married an Explorer is long out of print but well worth chasing down. Mac knew exactly what he was about, but for most of us he might have remained obscure but for the book his wife wrote in the 1930s about voyaging with him and his crew to north-west Greenland. Her rudder is extra-large for manoeuvring in ice, her propeller is super-deep and the hull sections are rounded to rise up when nipped in ice. Specifically built for the Arctic at 88ft x 21ft, she is double-planked and double-framed in oak, beefed up at the waterline with a 5ft belt of 1½in greenheart. Launched in 1921, the 66-ton Bowdoin was the brainchild of Donald (Mac) MacMillan, an explorer of the far north. Today, the auxiliary schooner Bowdoin operates under the flag of the Maine Maritime Academy, making training runs to Labrador and Greenland.
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