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Canadians fight proposal to move Arctic exploration ship
last update: Jun 06, 2011 09:39 PM
From an "AlaskaDispatch" article: a ship that once belonged to famed polar explorer Roald Amundsen, might be lifted out of Canadian waters and taken to Norway.
A group of citizens in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, is trying to stop this from happening and want the wreck of the Maud, also known as the Baymaud, which lies partially submerged in the shallow waters near Cambridge Bay, to stay where it has been for the past eight decades.
A committee "Keep the Baymaud Committee" is fighting a Norwegian's group's efforts to take the shipwreck back to Amundsen's home country, where the explorer is a national legend.
Committee chair Vicki Aitaok said losing the Maud would be a huge loss for Cambridge Bay, since the wreck is a major tourist attraction there. "We take 300 people or more every year there," Aitaok told CBC News on Thursday.
A Norwegian group "Maud Returns Home", is backed by a development company, and says it wants to salvage the wreck and move it back to the town in Norway where Amundsen had the Maud built a century ago. "We really think that the Maud deserves a better destiny than to stay forever, falling gradually more and more apart," Jan Wanggaard, a project manager with Maud Returns Home, told CBC News earlier this week.
The vessel belongs to the people in Asker, Norway, who bought the wreck from the Hudson's Bay Company for $1 in 1990. Because the wreck of the Maud is owned by the Norwegians, it is currently not protected by laws in Nunavut, said Doug Stenton, the territorial government's director of heritage. "Our regulations do not apply to private property," Stenton said.
Read:
Alaska Dispatch, 4th June 2011
