She has made 30[3] trips above the Arctic Circle in her life, three[3] since she was acquired by the Maine Maritime Academy as a sail training ship in 1988.

Only sixteen years before, the goal of many generations of Arctic explorers had been reached when a northwest passage was traversed – a route which was, practically speaking, unusable, and after the construction of the Panama Canal, no longer necessary.

The last few Hudson's Bay and Davis Strait whalers had made their final trip home two years before.

In 1967, at MacMillan's urging, the Schooner Bowdoin Association, Inc spearheaded by Dr. Edward Morse (the last surviving member of Admiral MacMillan's arctic voyages) was formed including friends of the admiral's, former crew members and others interested in saving the ship.

Mystic Seaport relinquished the schooner to the Association, which leased her to Captain Jim Sharp[7] of Camden, Maine.

A major restoration effort at the Maine Maritime Museum between 1980 and 1984 brought the schooner back to excellent condition.

[9] The work was supervised by Jim Stevens, owner of the Goudy-Stevens Yard in East Boothbay, formerly Hodgdon Brothers,[clarification needed] who first built Bowdoin in 1921.

In 1991 she carried students for the first time since her arrival at Maine Maritime Academy, traveling 150 miles North of the Arctic Circle to Disko Island, Greenland under the command of Captain Andy Chase.

She has generally remained in the area of the maritime provinces of Canada with visits to St. Pierre and Miquelon as well as Newfoundland and Labrador.

Bowdoin's most recent voyage north of the Arctic Circle got underway in the early summer of 2008 with Captain Richard Miller in command.