Photo: Norwegian crew continues to work on raising sunken Maud

The Maud sits in the water near Cambridge Bay Sept. 18, buoyed slightly by huge industrial balloons designed to float it up to the surface. Behind the Maud are the pontoon barge and tugboat that a group of Norwegian investors hope to use to bring polar explorer Roald Amundsen’s ship back to Norway. In the foreground, you can see some of the shipboards that the Norwegian crew have retrieved from the Maud, which has been sunk in the waters near the western Nunavut community for more than 80 years. But the Maud may not move much further in 2015. “A few weeks ago we succeeded to tilt Maud into an upright position on her keel and during the last weeks we have added a major increase of lifting forces on to her and we are now at the verge of making the final release from the seabed. If this goes well we believe we can get Maud on to our barge before the ice forms around the end of this month. If not, we will simply fulfill our task next summer,” the Norwegians wrote in a Sept. 14 statement on their Facebook page. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)