The Fur-Trade Fleet: Shipwrecks of the Hudson’s Bay Company

In mid-July 1925, the SS “Bayeskimo” ran into heavy drift ice at the entrance of Hudson Strait. As the ice moved north, squeezing the hull, the officers stood by helplessly as the ship sank. She was one of hundreds of ship in the Hudson’s Bay Company fur trade flee that sailed the subarctic and beyond the Arctic Circle, servicing far-flung posts. During these arduous voyages, many of them came to grief under conditions that would test the mettle of any ship.