The 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 specially built at a shipyard in Asker, Norway on the Oslofjord. Amundsen's intent was to freeze in in the ice pack and drift across the north pole. He never completed that trip. Eventually the Maud was seized by his creditors and sold to the HBC. They renamed it Bay Maud and had it refitted in Vancouver for use as a supply ship in the western arctic. The HBC factor (manager) L. A. Learmonth, in Cambridge Bay during my second tour there had spent fifty years in the north and was in Cambridge Bay when the Bay Maud was there. For a year or so it stayed there and operated as a weather station and radio station by the HBC. It was then abandoned there. All historical records I have seen say it sank in Cambridge Bay. However L Learmonth told us that the HBC found it was too slow and  much too heavily braced to carry much cargo. He was told to beach it and salvage whatever he could. It did not sink it was beached as high as posssible bearing in mind they only had only man and dog power to move it. The idea of sinking it would be absurd. Wood was much to precious there. What you see is a lower deck. All the higher wood has been salvaged. It is fairly well preserved in the arctic water. At one time the Norwegian city where it was built wanted to take it back. They managed to get all the necessary paper work okay'd. Then they found it was be prohibitably expensive to salvage.

Interestingly the RCMP schooner St. Roch was modeled on the Maud.

Milt, May 2010