HISTORIC SHIPS ON A LEE SHORE
Bound for the Arctic and Beyond: Schooner Bowdoin Prepares for Her Second Century of Voyaging by Michael W Mahan
I most a centu ry after the schooner Bowdoin carried Admiral D onald B. MacMillan's h istoric 192 1 exped ition to Baffin Island, the same 88foo t wooden sailing vessel will retu rn to the Arctic fo r her 29'h visit. A crew of sixteen-students and fac ulry fro m Maine Maritime Academy in Castine-will hoist sails, challenging both the elements and themselves, and continue MacMillan's tradi tio n of education, exploration, and scientific research that made headli nes a century earlier. How did a boy from Provincetown, Massachusetts, orphaned by age twelve, become the twentieth century's foremost authority regarding all things A rctic? And how did his ship, named for his alma mater, Bowdoin College, survive-and indeed thrive-to be designated a National His- Arctic explorer Donald MacMillan in fur suit toric Landma rk and the official vessel of at wheel ofthe schooner Bowdoin, c. 1922. the State of Maine? From a H odgdon Brothers railway in East Boothbay, Maine, in Casco Bay fro m boating accidents in the where Bowdoin was launched in the spring course of a th ree-day time period. His heof 1921, to Cas tine, now her homeport at roics made the papers, and the news caught Maine Maritim e Academy, is an easy the attention of polar explorer and fellow Downeas t sail. Bowdoin, however, has Bowdoin alumnus Robert E. Peary, who since the 1890s had been making explorcharted a circuito us course. MacMillan's fa ther was lost at sea when atory excursions to Greenland. By 1905 , D onald was just nine, but by then he had Peary had set his sights on the No rth Pole, already inherited his fa ther's love of sailing and he saw in MacMillan an excellent adand the sea. MacMillan was orphaned by dition to his expedition crew. At first, Macage twelve, just th ree years later when his M illan was not willing to abandon his mother died, and he was raken in by a local teaching comm itments, but Peary perfam ily, that of sea captain Murd ick Mc- sisted and in 1908 MacMillan was onboard D onald. Two years after that, h is older SS Roosevelt w ith Peary and Cap t. Bob sister, now married , sent for him to come Bartlett when it departed New York, bound live with her in Freeport, Maine, and go to for the North Pole. MacMillan, however, the local h igh school there. M acM illan would not be among those who made the excelled at Freeport H igh School and upon final trek to the Pole on 9 April 1909; he graduation was accepted at nearby Bowdoin was forced to turn back on 14 M arch, due College in Brunswick, Class of 1898 . H e to froze n heels. As would continue to be true th roughgraduated with a degree in geology and spent the nex t ten years teachi ng at schools out his life, MacMillan's setbacks would in Ma ine and Massachusetts; he also es- only prove to strengthen his resolve. In the ta blished a sum mer camp fo r boys that yea rs immediately following the North Pole foc used on sailing, seamanship, and navi- expedition, he continued h is polar explorations, with travels to Labrador and G reengation . During one summer at camp, MacMil- land. It was M acMillan's 1913 Greenland lan and his campers rescued nine people voyage, the Crocker Land Expedition, that 38
nearly ended in disas ter, but which also spurred his thinking about what type of vessel would best be able to face the challenges of A rctic navigation. Those ideas would ultimately rake shape in the fo rm of the schooner Bowdoin. The expedition got off to a rocky start. On 2 July 1913, the steamer Diana left the Brooklyn Naval Yard with M acMillan as expedition leader and his crew onboard as passengers. Two weeks out, around midnight- reportedly attempting to avoid an iceberg-Diana's captain ran her onto a ledge along the Labrador coast. M acMillan's account pointed the fin ger at the captain, who was d runk at the time. MacMillan arranged transport fo r his team on another steamer, the Erik, whose sober captain delivered the explorers safely to G reenland by mid-August. There, at the Inuit outpost Erah, M acMillan established a base camp and built an eight-room headquarters. In March of 1914, M acMillan and a team of ni ne, including Inuit guides, set out on a 1,200-mile exploratory journey in limited visibility and temperatures dipping below min us 32° F. W eather conditions deteriorated, and by mid-April only M acM illan, his engineer, Navy ensign Fitzhugh G reen, and two Inuit guides remained. The others had returned ro camp suffering from fros tbite and fatigue. What exactly happened to the fo ur later that month, and why, are questions still debated today. Three of the fo ur-MacM illan, Green, and the Inuit guide Ittukusuk- made it back to th e rendezvous. The fo urth, the Inuit guide Piuqaattoq, lay dead on the sea-ice, felled by a bullet from Green's rifle. The team had split into two groups of tw o , with Green and Piuqaattoq looking for a n alternate western route back to base camp. W hen Green eventually reconnected w ith MacMillan, he reported th at he a nd Piuqaattoq had argued about the sled d ogs, and admitted to the shooting. Green was never charged with murder, but there may have been m ore to the argumen t. G reen was rumored to have had an affair w ith Piuqaattoq's wife, Aleqasina, who had
SEA HISTORY 155, SUMMER 2016