Maud (ship)

''Maud'', named for Queen Maud of Norway, was a ship built for Roald Amundsen for his second expedition to the Arctic. Designed for his intended voyage through the Northeast Passage, the vessel was built in Asker, a suburb of the capital, Oslo.

''Maud'' was launched in June 1916Unsinking a ship: Maud returns home - Roald Amundsen and Maud
/ref> or 17 June 1917Maud Returns Home
/ref> at Vollen and ceremonially christened by Amundsen crushing a chunk of ice against her bow:

Career

She lived up to her christening, as she remained in the ice until 2016. Whereas other vessels used in Amundsen's polar explorations, '' Gjøa'' and '' Fram'', have been preserved at the Norwegian Maritime Museum, ''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. Prior to her final voyage ''Baymaud'' was given a refit in Vancouver, British Columbia. (The work was supervised by Tom Halliday, who later designed the RCMP vessel ''St. Roch'', based on ''Maud.'') In the winter of 1926 she was frozen into the ice at Cambridge Bay, where she sank in 1930. The wreck lay just offshore, across the inlet from the community's former Hudson's Bay Company store. Nearby is the site of the former Cambridge Bay LORAN Tower, built in 1947.

Salvage

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 an Asker-based company, Tandberg Eiendom AS, in the project Maud Returns HomeMaud Returns Home
/ref> announced a plan to return ''Maud'' to Norway. They intend to build a museum in Vollen to house her, near where she was built and had purchased a barge to move her. Concern about the plan came from the community of Cambridge Bay, Parks Canada, the Government of Nunavut, the International Polar Heritage Committee, and some people in her intended destination. Initial refusal of a new export permit from the federal government, on the grounds of a lack of a full archeological study was later reversed on appeal in March 2012. The salvage operation was under way in the summer of 2015, with a plan to return the hull to Norway in the summer of 2016.

On 31 July 2016 it was reported that the hull of ''Maud'' had been raised to the surface and placed on a barge in preparation for shipment to Norway. In August 2017 ''Maud'' began the journey back to Norway; she was towed through the Northwest Passage. In September 2017 she arrived in Greenland to stay for the winter. ''Maud'' arrived in Bergen on 6 August 2018, finally returning to Norway nearly a century after her departure with Amundsen. She was then towed along the Norwegian coast, and arrived at Vollen on 18 August.

Gallery

File:Amundsen Maud 1998-06-28.jpg, The wreck of ''Maud'' near Cambridge Bay, on the south coast of Victoria Island in Nunavut, Canada in 1998.
File:Maud risen 02.jpg, ''Maud'' on the surface in 2016.
File:Maud being tugged through the Bellot Strait.jpg, ''Maud'' being towed through the Bellot Strait towards Greenland in early September 2017.
File:Tandberg Polar tugging Maud through the Bellot Strait.jpg, ''Tandberg Polar'' towing ''Maud'' through the Bellot Strait towards Greenland in early September 2017.
File:Maud at Tofte.jpg, ''Maud'' with protective roof at Tofte, Norway in March 2020, while awaiting a new museum building for her.

References

External links

Maud at the Fram Museum
- Photos
Maud Returns Home
- Salvage project initiated and realized by Tandberg Eiendom, Norway (completed in 2019)

{{Oldest surviving ships (pre-1919)
Arctic exploration vessels
Individual sailing vessels
1916 ships
Ships built in Norway
Tall ships of Norway
Asker
Sailing ships of Canada
Kitikmeot Region
History of Nunavut
Shipwrecks of the Canadian Arctic coast
Art and cultural repatriation
Maritime incidents in 1930
Hudson's Bay Company ships
Icebreakers of Norway
Icebreakers of Canada