The Maud slowly rises: Norwegians bring long-sunken ship to surface

A team of Norwegians is one step closer to repatriating a ship that once belonged to famed Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen and that sank off the coast of Nunavut more than 80 years ago.

A photo posted Sunday on the Facebook page of the Norway-based organization Maud Returns Home shows the ship slowly rising from the shallow waters in Cambridge Bay.

In July, theMaudfloated for the first time since it sank more than 85 years ago, after the team spent the month slowly inflating air bags or balloons to help her rise to the surface.

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The team had been attempting to recover the wreckage for six years.

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The plan isto lift the ship completely out of the water and tug her back to Norway, but estimates are that it will be years before that can happen.

Amundsen's ship plied the Arctic between 1918 and 1920 in a failed attempt to cross the North Pole. After he went bankrupt, the ship was sold to the Hudson Bay Company, which used it as a floating warehouse. It sank off what is now Cambridge Bay in 1930 and has been there ever since.