Fabled 1930s Arctic fur-trading ship, built for Inuvialuit trappers, needs a new home

It's a piece of Canadian Indigenous history — and an effort is underway to ensure the 88-year-old Arctic fur-trading ship, called the North Star of Herschel Island, stays in Canada.

"She's just a lovely old ship," said Bruce Macdonald, an avid sailor who's owned and sailed the vessel since 1996 and is now looking to sell it, hopefully to the Vancouver Maritime Museum.

The museum wants the ship and is currently trying to raise money to purchase it. In the meantime, Macdonald said he also had several other offers, all from outside of Canada.

"I loved living on the ship and all that, but I'm seeing that it might be time for somebody else to take her on," Macdonald said.

"I'd love to see the ship stay here ... she's the last of her kind."

The 24-metre ship has a storied history, dating from a time when the Arctic fur trade was still thriving, and northern communities were reaping the rewards.

The North Star of Herschel Island was built in 1935 in San Francisco, for two Inuvialuit trappers: Fred Carpenter and Jim Wolki. The two had a lucrative business in the Western Arctic and they designed a vessel that would serve as an essential tool of their trade. 

The boat was launched at Herschel Island and for years her home port was at Sachs Harbour, N.W.T., on Banks Island. The two trappers would use it in the summer sailing season to bring their winter's harvest of furs to market, and also bring goods to Aklavik, Tuktoyaktuk, Inuvik and Herschel Island. 

It's a solidly-built vessel, Macdonald said, made by some of the best shipwrights of the era using some of the best wood.

"During the Depression, they were probably making more money than anybody else in Canada just through their business acumen, and really hard work," Macdonald said.

"Fred was such a good trapper, he needed a big boat."

By the 1960s, though, the fur trade was cooling down while the Cold War was heating up and the vessel found a new job: sailing back to Banks Island to assert Canada's sovereignty in the region. 

Soon, it also had a new owner. A trapper and hunter named Sven Johannson purchased the ship and used it for survey work in the Beaufort Sea before sailing it down to Victoria.

Macdonald got to know Johannson around that time, and started to learn more about the North Star of Herschel Island. He fell in love with the boat — and would teasingly ask Johannson when he planned to sell it to him.