by Kirsty Gilchrist
At the beginning of 2025, the Scottish Maritime Museum received a large donation of items related to the Ardrossan based ships Bayeskimo and Baychimo.
Found in the loft of a family home, the collection was donated by relatives of Robert Paterson from Saltcoats, and includes items related to his life and time working as a seaman in the early 20th century.
Included in this collection is a large volume of photographs showing Mr Paterson’s experience working on the ships Bayeskimo and Baychimo in Northern Canada and Alaska during the 1920s and 1930s. The photographs also document the period when these ships were stuck in ice fields and abandoned by the crew, who awaited rescue in makeshift tents. The items were found alongside a well-used animal pelt jacket, which the family believe Mr Paterson bought from the Indigenous people he met during this time.
Bayeskimo
The steamship Bayeskimo was built at Ardrossan Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Co Ltd over a hundred years ago in 1922 and launched on May 18th of that year.
Owned by the Hudson Bay Company (HBC), a big name in the North American fur trade since the 17th century, the Bayeskimo crew was made up of local men from Ardrossan, Saltcoats, and other Ayrshire towns.
On a routine journey in July 1925, the Bayeskimo was stuck in the ice in Ungava Bay, in Northeast Canada. After being abandoned by the crew, who made shelters out of oars and wore fur pelts to stay warm on the ice, the ship eventually sank. The crew spent a short amount of time stranded on the ice fields in the Arctic Ocean before being rescued by the ship Nascopie and taken to a nearby Indigenous community. Based on the photographs and further research, the community may have been in Kuujjuaq, a HBC Trading Port at the time, or the smaller community of Killiniq, Nunavut, known at the time as ‘Port Burwell’. It seems that the crew of the Bayeskimo stayed in the nearby Indigenous village while waiting to be picked up by another ship to make their way back home to Scotland, and Mr Paterson took many photographs during his time there.
Baychimo
Built in 1915 at the Swedish shipyard Lindholmens for a German company in Hamburg, the cargo steamer Baychimo (previously named Ångermanelfven) was given to the United Kingdom as reparations after World War I and eventually purchased by the Hudson Bay Company in 1921. Like the Bayeskimo, the vessel was based in Ardrossan and would make similar voyages across the Atlantic to Canada, visiting HBC fur trading posts.
The Baychimo was stuck in ice near Ulġuniq (or ‘Wainwright’), and Utqiagvik (formerly ‘Barrow’) in Northern Alaska, 1931. The ship has since been declared a “ghost ship” due to repeated sightings from locals in that area until 1969. Currently its location is unknown, but it is likely that the ship has sank since this last recorded sighting.
After abandoning the trapped ship in the ice fields of Northern Alaska, the crew of the Baychimo were either flown directly to Nome, home of the Inupiat community, or, after waiting behind in makeshift tents, taken directly to Vancouver before making their way home to Ayrshire.
See Mr Alan Bolton’s website for more information about these journeys, discovered through photographs from his relatives: https://www.aboltonswebsite.co.uk/hbc_main.html
Identification
The Indigenous groups shown in the photographs donated to the museum could be from Inuit communities in Northeast Canada if the photographs are from the Bayeskimo journey in 1925, or the Inupiat community if the photographs are from the final Baychimo journey in 1931.
However, it is not always clear which journey or crew is represented in the photographs. Therefore, the location and specific people recorded through the photographs is not always known. It would be presumptuous and offensive to assume the identity of the various unnamed people photographed, as they could belong to a specific community from elsewhere in Canada. For instance, when smaller, non-profitable trading posts closed in the 20th century, many Indigenous people would increasingly have to travel far distances to meet traders at HBC posts in various locations. The fur trade in North America began under the influence of colonialism and remained structured in ways that made it difficult for Indigenous communities to benefit from this imposed business.
Additionally, Robert Paterson may not have taken all the photographs. We know from the generous donation of his Continuous Certificate of Discharge that he was a crew member of the Bayeskimo at the time of its sinking in 1925, and a crew member of the Baychimo for two voyages in 1926. However, the detail in his Certificate stops around 1927, and it is not possible to confirm if he was still working on the Baychimo when it was stuck in the ice and finally abandoned in the 1931 voyage. Unlike the Bayeskimo journey, Mr Paterson is not present on the crew lists that were published in newspapers regarding the Baychimo and its last voyage. However, these lists are incomplete and may not represent the whole crew. In fact, someone once wrote in to correct a newspaper that had wrongly identified some members of the crew.
If Mr Paterson was not onboard the Baychimo in 1931, he may have received copies of photographs from that voyage afterwards from friends – many of the crew were from similar areas in North Ayrshire and no doubt would have a strong bond after their experience on the Bayeskimo. Again, it is difficult to distinguish on which journey each photograph was taken. For instance, the collection may also feature photographs taken by Mr Paterson on previous journeys with the Baychimo in 1926.
Some crew members are helpfully identified by name or rank on the back of photographs and can be cross referenced with supporting newspaper records. Unfortunately, the Indigenous people photographed are never named. This is an ongoing issue in archives and collections, and community outreach work in Canada aims to address this problem. See the ‘Project Naming’ webpage for more information on these initiatives: https://library-archives.canada.ca/eng/collection/research-help/indigenous-heritage/Pages/project-naming.aspx
The Hudson Bay Company is currently in the process of liquidation, and recently the Association of Canadian Archivists has issued a letter of concern to the CEO of HBC regarding the proposed auction of historical materials from the company’s collection. For more information about the history of the Hudson Bay Company and its current situation, see the following links.
Hudson Bay Company history: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/hudsons-bay-company
The Hudson Bay Company Archives: https://librarianship.ca/news/hbc-archives-update/
ACA Letter of Concern: https://archivists.ca/Latest-News-Announcements/13499600
The museum would like to thank the family of Robert Paterson once again for their kind donation of such interesting items and photographs to our collection of significant Scottish maritime heritage.
Photographs
2025-003(008) Bayeskimo:
2025-003(010)(xviii) Bayeskimo sinking in Ugava Bay:
2025-003(010)(xix), 2025-003(010)(xxi) Crew of Bayeskimo waiting for Nascopie to arrive:
2025-003(010)(xv) Ice photo from bridge of Bayeskimo:
2025-003(007)(ii) – Baychimo at Herchel Island:
2025-003(007)(cxix) Baychimo docked at a harbour:
2025-003(006)(xxxxv) Baychimo crew in football wear:
2025-003(006)(xii) An indigenous family, presumably standing outside of their home:
2025-003(006)(v) An indigenous family onboard ship Bayeskimo or Baychimo c. 1930:
2025-003(010)(xxxviii) An Indigenous home, possibly near Ungava Bay/Labrador:
