Between 1921 and 1954, the schooner Bowdoin made 26 voyages to the Arctic Circle. The first of these voyages began in July, 1921, when the Bowdoin set out for Baffin Island with Donald Macmillan at the helm. The Bowdoin was a research center, and the Carnegie Institution had sponsored her trip. The objective was to study terrestrial magnetism and atmospheric electricity.

The Bowdoin, with her crew of seven, wintered over near Baffin Island, where they were frozen in for 274 days.

Throughout the 1920's, the Bowdoin sailed as a research vessel on behalf of the Carnegie Institution, the National Geographic Society, and the U.S. Navy.

The Bowdoin's 1930 trip to Iceland was her first voyage carrying inexperienced students. Macmillan found this to be a reliable way to finance his future trips north. From 1934 onward, paying students always accompanied him. There was still scientific work being done aboard the Bowdoin, but perhaps it was no longer of as much significance as it once had been. For the "boys", as the students who sailed with Macmillan called themselves then and still do, sixty years later, the experience was momentous. These young men often said that between the physical challenges they faced and the personal character example of their captain, their future lives were shaped by the summers they spent aboard the Bowdoin.

World war II changed life for the schooner Bowdoin. Although she started the war under the command of her own skipper, she soon passed into other hands, and ultimately almost lost her life. Following her service, the Bowdoin was taken to Boston where she was decommissioned and sat until the end of the war.

Hulk #51, as the navy had classified the Bowdoin, was a derelict. On January 19, 1945, Macmillan bought back his schooner and rebuilt her. By the end of June, 1946, the Bowdoin was ready to go to sea again.

Macmillan once again sailed the Bowdoin to the arctic waters that had become so familiar. Eventually, it was time for Macmillan to retire. He wanted to see his schooner taken care of, even though he wouldn't be sailing her. The curator of Mystic Seaport museum, Edouard Stackpole, expressed interest in the schooner, and the Bowdoin was sold to the museum in 1959.

Virginia Thorndike
The Arctic Schooner Bowdoin