Two Arctic Ghost Ships, the HMS Terror and the SS Baychimo (Episode 58)

Relative Disasters

It's an Arctic Ghost Ship Double-Header! First up is the HMS Terror, which carried Sir John Franklin's 1845 expedition all the way to King William Island in the very far north of Nunavut, Canada, before freezing into the pack ice and being abandoned; and in the second half, we've got the SS Baychimo, a cargo freighter lost in pack ice off the coast of Alaska in 1931. Although they were abandoned at either end of the Arctic and nearly a century apart, both the Terror and the Baychimo were repeatedly spotted - and in some cases, boarded - by locals multiple times before disappearing again.

On this episode, we're talking about how interesting the Arctic Ocean is, why so many people died looking for the Northwest Passage, pack ice fun facts, and whether kraken have bathtub toys. Put on your winter gear, pop those drinks in a cooler, and get your icebreakers ready - it's going to be a chilly one.

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Sources:

"HMS Terror and Erebus", Royal Museums of Greenwich website

"Arctic shipwreck 'frozen in time' astounds archaeologists" by R Smith for National Geographic, 2019

"Ship found in Arctic 168 years after doomed Northwest Passage attempt" by P Watson for The Guardian, 2016

"Arctic 'ghost ship' found -- Sir John Franklin's doomed HMS Terror" by B Jones for CNN.com, 2016

"Baychimo: Arctic Ghost Ship" by A Dalton, 2006

"SS Baychimo: the Ghost Ship that sailed alone for 38 years and disappeared…", staff writer for Random Times, 2018

"Rediscovering the S.S. Baychimo at the UA Museum of the North" University of Alaska Museum of the North webpage, 2016

"No traces found today of SS Baychimo, the “Ghost Ship of the Arctic” that roamed the seas unmanned for decades" by M Chalakoski for The Vintage News, 2018