Today we're on the high seas, having left St. Paul around 11 last night. We weren't expecting a great reception in St. Paul. Something happened there twenty years ago that the residents have not forgiven Greenpeace for, according to rumours going around the Espy. Details are sketchy. It's said that we had a boat visiting St. Paul, and some campaigners went to a Tribal Council meeting in town while other mates went out in a zodiac and accidentally disturbed the seals, which St. Paul Aleuts depend on for their subsistence. Some of the seals took off out to sea, and as the annual seal hunt was next day, our accident was seen as sabotage.
Rumors are rife and conflicting. It was the subsistence hunt of the Aleuts. No, it was really commercial seal hunting. At least one mate thinks it doesn't matter which it was, subsistence or commercial, that we have a duty to stop the hunting of all seals, period.
The Captain is prepared to apologize to the community at a town meeting we'll be holding in St. Paul.
At the island of St. George, which we just left, residents distrustful of Greenpeace came around to a supportive position. But a man warned me: &quoton't expect the same reaction in St. Paul that you've seen here in St. George". Besides, St. George has 108 citizens. St. Paul, more like 500.
Needless to say we are a touch wary as we walk into the only bar in St. Paul and sit down for a brewski. Back in a bar in Dutch Harbour less than a week ago a man...wielding a knife, apparently...suggested to several Greenpeacers that they go drink elsewhere. They didn't, and nothing further ensued, but...
Anyway, I decide to check out the lay of the land, see if I can do some campaigning. While I order an Alaska Summer beer at the bar, a man introduces himself and we shake and I gradually get into why we're here. He isn't too crazy about Greenpeace, but he's interested in the canyon footage we're going to show at the meeting and is against bottom trawling. He says he may come to the meeting. The guy on the other side of me. (Note to husband: all these guys are dead ugly!). is a longliner who is furious about how bottom trawling is destroying the marine environment. Or maybe it’s just a line. If so, these guys are good. (Note to husband, that means I'm happy my campaigning is working). He also kite-surfs (I make a mental note to mention this to Brent, our videographer, as a kite-surfer who opposes bottom trawling might make for interesting footage) and may come to the meeting, too. It occurs to me that word has preceded us. Have people in St. George called friends in St. Paul, given them a heads up that they're on side with us?
Then a giant of a guy, he must be six-five and maybe 225 or more, stomps up and plants himself about an inch from my face. "Greenpeace is twenty years too late!" he shouts. All I hear is "twenty years" and I think, I'm going to get my lights punched out. My companions at a table by the window suddenly seem so very far away. Why, why did I ever start talking to men in a bar? (Note to husband: never again). I start to stammer something about being sorry for whatever happened twenty years ago but he waves it aside with a hand as big as a bear paw. "That doesn't matter," he growls. "I don't always like what Greenpeace does, but if it wasn't for Greenpeace, there'd be no boreal forests in the Amazon!" He is so loud, I'm sure the whole bar can hear. How great is that? And then HE starts going on about the evils of bottom trawling. Kite surfer gets into the game: "Greenpeace is here at exactly the right time!" Boy, these guys sure know how to sweet-talk a girl. I mention we're going to Amchitka, and the giant gets heated: "They set off three nuclear bombs up there. My buddy won't work there, because it's radioactive." I pull aside my jacket collar, show him the button pinned to my denim shirt. It's the one that preceded the first Greenpeace button, the yellow one with a peace sign and the word "Amchitka" in green, the one I used to sell for 25 cents to raise money to charter the first Greenpeace boat to sail to Amchitka to protest the blasts. Giant staggers back a few steps. "No way!" he shouts.
As we leave the bar I'm practically floating, and it's not (just) the Alaska Summer. Our meeting tomorrow night is going to be a piece of cake! Best of all, I'm not going to have to speak now, hopefully. After I shot my mouth off in St. George and accidentally said something right, I've been targeted to open the meeting here, and although I've prepared some remarks, I'm not exactly looking forward to it.
Back at the boat Julie, our cultural anthropologist and as you may know from a previous blog super-duper prize knitter, shares her not-so-great experience. Apparently there are some in the community who attribute the blunders of every environmental group who've messed up here, to Greenpeace. Groan. Let's hope they come to the meeting so we can set them straight.
But the next night at the meeting, the only people attending are about eighteen locals, thirteen Greenpeacers from the Espy and a German camera crew who film the whole thing. George is absolutely brilliant, of course. Several Aleuts speak, articulately and at length, and seem to be on side. I'm off the hook, only have to say a few words about "back in the day". Whatever hostility and negativity there may be in the community towards Greenpeace never materializes. The only flack we encounter is from a pre-teen, hanging with his friends outside the general store, who asks Willem where he's from. "Amsterdam," Willem replies. "You must be a pothead then!" the kid says. When Willem denies it, the kid says: "Then you're a crackhead." "Look at him," I say to the boy. &quotoes he look like a crackhead?" Willem continues ahead, erect and well-dressed as always in subtle blues, greens and browns. His clothes hang on him as if they've just been ironed, although I'm sure there's no iron on board. "F... you," the kid says, and I continue on.