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*
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/101655

Alaskan Sight Starngre Vessel Far From Shore in Arctic Park Alaskans Sight Strange Vessel Far From Shore in A rctic Pack BARROW, Alaska, March 3 (AP) —Strange things have occurred in the Arctic ice pack, old-time residents commented today in suggesting that a "Flying Dutchman" ship sighted far off shore in the ice might be a whaler lost half a century ago. "It's 50 years since seven great whaling ships floated out into the unknown, fact in the ice, with a hundred or more men aboard," Charles D. Brower, old-time whaler, said today. "In 1898, also, a number of whalers were crushed and abandoned in the ice. "It is hardly possible that one of those ice-resisting oak schooners could survive until now, but strange things have happened on the ice pack." Strange Vessel Sighted A week ago an unidentified ship, a two-masted schooner, was sighted far off shore. At first believed to be the Baychimo, marooned and abandoned in the ice four winters age southwest of here, Eskimos who tried to reach it were certair it was another ship. The Eskimo who ran to Barrow with the first word of the Rogers- Post tragedy last summer, Claire Oakpeha, insisted to Dr. Henry W. Greist, Presbyterian medical mis sionary, it was not the Baychimo. Oakpeha and Bill Solomon, another Eskimo, hunting far off shore, were forced back after trying to reach the derelict. Siberian Boat, Perhaps 'Ship two masts, no funnel," he said. The Baychimo had both the masts and the funnel and had been sighted occasionally until two years ago, as it was carried back and forth for miles with the different seasons in the ice. No further attempts have been made to visit the ship because of the continued cold and strong winds and a wide lead of open water two miles offshore. Both Brower and Dr. Greist also expressed the belief that the ship might have been one carried eastward in the ice from the Siberian coast. The usual ice drift is from west to east until reversed by the Brower, so-called "king of the arctic," has been at Barrow 52 years. In the early days he operated the whaling station. One year he was with a party which abandoned their ship and tried to reach shore, going 11 days without food. When rescued only 13 of the party sur-