“THE ARCTIC SCHOONER BOWDOIN A BIOGRAPHY,” by Virginia Thorndike, 1995 North Country Press, Unity, Maine, 260 pages, $16.95.

I really wanted to like this book. I wanted it to be a vehicle by which the great unwashed (the vast majority of the sane world who do not understand the majesty of wooden boats) are somehow converted.

But in the beginning, it was as hard as the Bowdoin’s oak framing. I found myself, like the Little Engine That Could, saying “I think I can, I think I can.” Finally, like the little engine, I did it. This book, for all of its flaws, will grow on you. And why not — it’s a recipe that calls for a lot of heroes and heroines, many of them with a distinctly local flavor.

Start with an 88-foot-long schooner launched from the fabled Hodgdon yard in East Boothbay in the spring of 1921. Add Donald MacMillan, a Bowdoin College graduate, who grew up in Freeport and had been on Robert Peary’s 1908 assault on the North Pole. Sprinkle with a cast of characters known as “the boys” — college men, like Braley Gray of Newburgh, who paid their own way north to help fund the annual trips and assist the scientific observations, as well as sail the Bowdoin. Season with the usual cast of offbeat stalwarts and dreamers who flock to wooden boats that more reasonable people would proclaim past saving.

The reader can separate this book into three parts, starting with the MacMillan years up through his last voyage north in 1954 at the age of 80. (There was a break during WWII when both man and ship served, but separately. MacMillan spent his time on the beach, while the Bowdoin, under military crews, served in the familiar haunts of the far north.)

The second part chronicles the years of trials and rebuilding between the Bowdoin’s purchase by the Mystic Seaport Museum of Mystic, Conn., and its lease by the Schooner Bowdoin Association, until its ultimate acquisition by Maine Maritime Academy in 1988.

Last is the wonderful chronicle of cruises under the auspices of MMA where we finally find the frank and colorful journals of what the trips and people were really like. The journals and letters of the crew of the 1991 trip north under Capt. Andy Chase are, for this reader, worth the price of the book.

The early years with MacMillan I found the hardest going. The author is undoubtedly hobbled by having to rely on the ship’s logs for material. Nautical types are a circumspect crew when writing in the log; terror is hardly ever mentioned. The grounding of a nonmilitary ship may be mentioned laconically as it was a common occurrence.

The Bowdoin explored the Arctic by running aground on uncharted ledges and hitting rocks where none were previously known to exist. It is the natural course of events when you sail uncharted areas.

Clayton Hodgdon, who served as steward on several trips with MacMillan, remembers going aground on Cape Sable: “… she struck hard. I stuck my head out — and right over there, there’s sheep blatting at me in the fog. Sheep!” Letters home and interviews are better than logs any day.

There are two particularly unfortunate omissions in the early going which could have added greatly to the enjoyment of all readers, from the casual to dedicated wooden boat aficionados.

The first is a decent map detailing the track of the voyages and ports of call. Although the inside front cover features a small scale map drawn by Camden’s Sam Manning, why the publisher didn’t include more of this wonderfully talented and boat-knowledgeable artist’s work is a conundrum.

It also would have been nice to have had Manning draw the Bowdoin and its rigging with appropriate notation and identification. There are references to repairs to rigging that will mean absolutely nothing to the casual reader and send even experienced sailors searching their library.

The time at the Mystic Seaport Museum and then the rebuilding years I found interesting, frustrating and finally fulfilling. There is enough blame for lack of action and bureaucratic bumbling to be spread wide and thick during the period from 1959 to 1985 when the Bowdoin was allowed to go to ruin by the museum and was slowly rebuilt by the Schooner Bowdoin Association.

In dealing with people such as John Nugent and a group known as the “Irish Mafia” of Boston, the reader is reminded that even well-meaning groups of volunteers involved in good causes do not always behave honorably. The author, unfortunately, never tells us who the bad guys are. Any reader can figure out who the good guys are.

The year 1991 finds the Bowdoin under the command of Andy Chase and Mate Elliot Rappaport heading back to the Arctic. This part of the book contains copious quotes from the writings of Chase and Rappaport, as well as those of a Smith College student named Deborah Harrison who signed on to be the steward.

Harrison, from Alaska, earned her pilot’s license at 17 because it was more useful than a driver’s license. She writes with passion and from the heart about the Bowdoin and her shipmates and the newly installed stove which never works as expected. This is a young woman I want to meet.

This is the part of the book that spreads the gospel of what it’s all about, the dynamics of relationships between crew and boat and between crew members. The Bowdoin is beautiful. It deserved to be restored and sailed by people who love it. It is hoped this book will recruit a few future lovers for a gallant vessel.