Northwest History. Alaska. Science. United States.

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1936
• Subjects: Alaska; Ships; Ship building; Northwest; Pacific > History > 20th Century; Arctic; Pacific; Barrow; eskimo*; Point Barrow; Tundra
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/101654

Derelict Schooner is Locked in Arctic Ice; May Be a Whaler Lost Fifty Years Ago Derelict Schooner is Locked in Arctic Ice; May Be a Whaler Lost Fifty Years Ago By The Associated Press BARROW, Alaska, March 3.- Identity of a derelict ship locked in the Arctic ice far off Point Barrow puzzled both natives and whites today, but some believed she might be one of seven staunch whalers which sailed into the northern seas fifty years ago and never returned. The vessel, a two-masted schooner, was first sighted a week ago. Eskimos attempted to reach it but failed. Among them was Claire Oakpeha, who ran fifteen miles across the Arctic tundra to Barrow last Summer with the news of the Will Rogers-Wiley Post plane tragedy. Observers at first believed it was the ill-fated fur trading ship Baychimo, abandoned four years ago after being trapped in the ice. Oakpeha and Bill Solomon, another native, insisted, however, it was not. Charles D. Brower, veteran whaler, said there was only a bare possibility it might be one of the old-time oak built ships, famous for their ability to resist the ice "It is fifty years since the seven great whaling ships floated out into the unknown and became fast in the ice, with a hundred or more "It is hardly possible that one of those ships could have survived until now, but strange things have happened in the ice pack." The mystery of the derelict may be solved when the ice pack clears this Summer.