Arctic Spirit

Battling severe weather in an ice field, the crew are floored when the schooner Bowdoin dives beneath a freezing wave

- By Tom Cunliffe, Photography by Library of Congress/Corbis/Getty Images

Today, the auxiliary schooner Bowdoin operates under the flag of the Maine Maritime Academy, making training runs to Labrador and Greenland.

Launched in 1921, the 66-ton Bowdoin was the brainchild of Donald (Mac) MacMillan, an explorer of the far north. Specifically built for the Arctic at 88ft x 21ft, she is double-planked and double-framed in oak, beefed up at the waterline with a 5ft belt of 1½in greenheart. Her rudder is extra-large for manoeuvring in ice, her propeller is super-deep and the hull sections are rounded to rise up when nipped in ice.

Mac knew exactly what he was about, but for most of us he might have remained obscure but for the book his wife wrote in the 1930s about voyaging with him and his crew to north-west Greenland. Miriam MacMillan's I married an Explorer is long out of print but well worth chasing down. In this extract, she describes how Mac works the Bowdoin through a potentially disastrous ice situation to see the ship safely home.

"When we left the village behind, a dozen Eskimos (sic) escorted us out of the harbour in their kayaks, their silver wakes speckled with sunlight as they skimmed gracefully over a perfectly calm sea. Unable at last to keep up with our gathering speed, they ceased their efforts and, resting on their paddles, waved and shouted until we were well on our course. We watched these swarthy hunters of the North as they turned about and slowly paddled away. After they had turned toward home they never looked back. I thought of Mac sailing away from me in the