Arctic explorer’s ship to return to Norway after 90 years in Nunavut
CAMBRIDGE BAY, Nunavut — Nearly 90 years after she sank into Nunavut’s Arctic seabed, the ship that took famed explorer Roald Amundsen on his second polar expedition is finally ready to sail back home to Norway.
Now only sea ice in the Northwest Passage stands in the way of the Maud beginning her way home to a hero’s welcome near the Norwegian city where she was built.
“It’s all depending on the development of the ice,” said Jan Wanggaard, the Norwegian who’s been working for the last six years on the project. “It looks like it can happen within the next couple weeks.”
The Maud was built in 1917 for Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole. He also made groundbreaking expeditions in the Canadian Arctic, including the first successful transit of the Northwest Passage.