Divers prepare to raise the Maud, Roald Amundsen's Arctic time capsule
The boat, which sank in 1930, could begin its rise this weekend
In the cool, clear waters outside Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, five Norwegians are zipping about in dinghies and scuba gear, making tiny adjustments to a series of airbags they plan to strap to the hull of the Maud, Roald Amundsen's sunken ship, in the hopes of raising it just high enough to slide a submersible barge beneath.
It's the culmination of four years work to return to the ship to Norway, Amundsen's home country, where Amundsen, who became the first to navigate the Northwest Passage in 1903, remains a national hero.
It's also a technical challenge.
"The air tends to move, inside the airbag, from one side of the airbag to the other," says Jan Wanggaard, project manager for the Norway-based organization Maud Returns Home.
Under water since 1930
Nonetheless, the 35.4-metre vessel, which hasn't seen the light of day since 1930, could begin its rise to the surface as early as this weekend, Wanggaard says.
The Maud was Amundsen's second ship, which he used for a second Arctic voyage to the Northeast Passage — along Russia's Arctic coast — between 1918 and 1920.
Amundsen had planned to take the Maud to the North Pole, by letting it drift in ice. Instead, he went bankrupt. The Maud was sold to the Hudson Bay Company, which used it as a floating warehouse. In 1930, it sank in shallow water off Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, where it had been anchored for four years.
"In the public eye, it was definitely considered a failure," says Wanggaard. "But in the eye of the people who knew the expedition, it wasn't, because it was more a scientific expedition than anything."
Amundsen remains a national hero in Norway, where Wanggaard and his group hope to display the ship as an icon of national pride.
'Sort of sad'
The work is slow and methodical; the atmosphere is congenial and relaxed. The team has even set up a hangout area using an old couch pulled from the community's dump.
Spectators occasionally drop by, on foot or by ATV.
Roger Wallis of Australia is in the hamlet en route to navigating the Northwest Passage himself this summer.
"It's sort of sad that it's finished up here," he says of the Maud, "and that it's fallen apart the way it has. But under the water, I believe it's in good nick."