Posted by kieran_mulvaney on 08/30/2007 8:50 pm

Of all the places I never imagined I would visit twice ...

We are about an hour away from returning to Adak. Few places have had as much an impact on everyone on board as this remote outpost, and whereas initial reaction to the apparent ghost town was disbelief and discomfort, the crew genuinely warmed to the community and the hospitality it showed us. For a few hours this evening, we will have an opportunity to experience it again.

We may take advantage of our presence here to refuel, if that proves possible. Otherwise, the principal rationale for returning is to give back something we borrowed.

We had little idea what we would find in terms of terrain on Amchitka, so George secured the loan of an ATV from someone in town. It sat proudly lashed to the heli deck on our journey west--the previous leg boasted fancy submarines, we had a Polaris four-wheeler--until we left our anchorage off the coast of Amchitka and tied up alongside at the island's (surprisingly well-maintained) dock in beautiful, sheltered Constantine Harbor.

From the dock, the gravel road that the military had carved into the spine of Amchitka sloped gently into the distance, and several of the crew unhesitatingly used our temporary transport to drive up it and explore the island in much greater comfort than had been the case the day before. I stayed behind, as there was filming to be done, but I wandered around the vicinity of the dock, looking at the tell-tale signs that this silent, abdandoned spot had once been a hive of activity: dirt tracks now almost overgrown, drainage pipes emptying into the water; piles of trash and abandoned, rusting equipment.

Perhaps it was gallows humor, but after a while, we defined everything on Amchitka with the same pejorative adjective. There were no spiders, only radioactive spiders; no flowers, only radioactive ones. Want to reach the bluff that overlooks the harbor? Head up the radioactive road until you reach the radioactive fork.

We were joking, sort of, but it was rarely comfortable. Amchitka was beautiful and rugged and peaceful, but the demons were everywhere. The knowledge of what had happened there was inescapable; it invaded us, possessed us, bore deep inside us. I had wanted desperately to be here, as if it were my destiny, to the extent that the morning of our arrival I was almost physically sick with nerves and anticipation. But there was something about the spirit of the place that made me want to leave almost immediately.

"I hate this [expletive] island," I kept muttering. "I hate this [expletive] island."

And yet, it is now a part of me to a degree I never dared imagine.

It is not the island's fault, what happened here. Amchitka did not ask for the violence that was visited upon it. Amchitka is the victim, not the perpetrator. Amchitka needs to be healed, not shunned.

We stood, a few of us, overlooking the ship and the harbor. We said a few words, gave thanks, expressed the hope that perhaps, in some small way, our presence there, by closing the circle started by the crew of the Phyllis Cormack thirty-six years ago, might somehow represent a process of cleansing. It is time for life to return to this place of death.

In honor of the sentiment we pronounced the bluff to be Esperanza Hill--not as a claim of ownership, but as a declaration of hope, for Amchitka and for the Bering Sea.

We returned to the ship and prepared to leave. But first we had to wait for Hettie and Mannes, who had stayed on board the day before while we had scrambled to the test site, and who now had taken the twenty-mile round trip up the road to the vicinity of the Cannikin test to see for themselves. They made it back to the Espy at almost exactly the time they had promised, but then they set my heart racing.

"We think you went to the wrong spot," they said.

They described what they had found to the side of the road: the site of the Long Shot test, definitely, and, farther north, evidence, they thought, of Cannikin. Of the latter, I was certain they were wrong: apart from anything else, our GPS had shown us to be almost exactly at the coordinates of the test. But, it was ALMOST exactly, not exactly: enough for us, after tramping across hostile terrain, to declare victory, but now I felt a nagging discomfort. There should have been a commemorative plate in the ground, believe it or not, but we didn't find it. I wished now that we had looked with greater vigor for definitive proof; I feared that perhaps we had not seen Cannikin Lake at all, that in fact what we had sought had been just over the next ridge.

I wanted to go back to be sure. I wanted to go back so that, if I had been wrong, I could now find the correct site. I wanted to go back to explore the rest of the island, to bear witness to the results of the other tests, as if in doing so I would be able to confront their demons and rid myself of them. And I realized that, although one circle had closed, another one had opened.

I thought I would find closure. In fact, I found a beginning. Now I am the one who must return to Amchitka.

Posted by pribilof on 08/30/2007 7:10 pm

Oh my gosh. Of all the things I have seen, experienced and witnessed, never before have I seen such awefulness. I saw Amchitka. I saw the future. I saw death shrouded in attempted beauty. I saw the big one. Amchitka.

I was born here, as you know. I grew up here. I learned here. I was nurtured in honesty and in truth by my environment, Mom and Dad. I trusted without doubt in goodness. Men; people, I was told, are fundamentally good. Given a choice they will always do the right thing. Not. I witnessed that first hand. Amchitka.

We are surrounded in the sounds of life, water, silence and beauty. When hungry, we eat. When thirsty, we drink. When tired, we rest. When alone, we seek our loved ones. But, here, in Amchitka, none of those things are possible. You cannot hardly hear life, much less see it. One cannot drink water, although there. (At dinner at home with my family, I often drink a nice clear cold glass of water and ask: "I wonder who invented water?" To which my family always responds: "No one." I continue: "Then where did it come from?" And they respond. "God.") And in Amchitka one is alone. Alone in life, thoughts, dreams, hopes. For how could one feel and think otherwise? Amchitka. 

The big one is not the bomb. For sure, the bomb is, was and forever will be big. The big one is not the Island, for Islands of various sizes we shall always have. The big one is not the place or even humanity or mankind gone awry. The big one is Amchitka the total lie!

Oh we say, our government says. It is a National Wildlife Refuge. Look at thoses words. National. Belongs to the Nation of peace and pursuit of whatever. Wildlife. For the purposes of or the use by wild life! And Refuge. A place to get away, solice, rest, protection. And in my humble opinion,  Amchitka is none of those. It is not a Refuge. There is nothing there taking reguge from anything. We created a wildlife refuge and even the animals don't want to go there. Not even a self respecting jellyfish to be found. We tried to fool them and instead are fooling ourselves. They know. Amchitka.

Interestingly, we saw and experienced. Then we planted a cross. For peace and thanksgiving. Giving back to the Creator something which we wanted to give back. But, we gave back the place most destroyed and dirtied. We gave back to the Creator a gift we received and trashed. We gave back, of all places, Amchitka. And? Somehow I believe He recieved it from us. He loved that we made a decision to give something back, even though it is forever trashed! And I know the only thing alive and living in Amchitka is a cross. Amchitka.

The big one is, shrouded in beauty but covered in death. Pretend Wildlife Refuge. And how can we pray life back? Once destroyed, how can we will life's return? We may very well have seen the future of the entire Bering Sea, our home, our blood, unless we act and act decisively. Once this place is destroyed, the National Wildlife Gift, we may not ever get it back. George's Banks comes to mind. And a lot of other places. We came out of death and back into life in the Bering Sea. And we are never going to be the same people. Amchitka.

And so, it is a lie. We would like to cover it up and say others in the past did this, we wouldn't. But is that really true? Could we, watching changes happen at a snails pace in the Bering Sea, suddenly wake up and be in Amchitka. Amchitka. That place is a lie, a place on the planet we call Mother Earth.

Until Next Time

 

George 

Posted by stoweaway on 08/30/2007 5:00 pm

As some of you may know, Kieran has written a great blog about Amchitka and our time there. For me it is taking a little longer to process. Hence, although we left the island this morning and are on our way back to Adak, you'll be hearing from me over several blogs about our time on this nuclear test zone. Starting now.
For any other stop I’ve been content to wander out of my cabin after the usual 7:30 wake-up call but for Amchitka I ask Hettie, who is on watch, to wake me at first sight of the island, even if it happens to be in the middle of the night. This is not likely, as we’re due to arrive at the staid old hour of nine am, but just to be sure.
Several of us are on the bridge a good hour ahead of time, tensely waiting for a first glimpse of this site that has so much historic resonance for Greenpeace. No-one from the early days of the organization, when we had a single campaign, a single focus, to stop a nuclear test on Amchitka Island, has ever made it here in a Greenpeace boat. Thirty-six years after watching the Phyllis Cormack sail out of Vancouver for Amchitka, I’ll be the first of that initial group who will arrive here on a Greenpeace ship. And what a ship. Instead of an eighty-foot halibut fishing boat, we’re pulling up in a massive boat with five zodiacs and a heli-pad on board.
I step outside, pull my collar up around my neck. I’m wearing a button on my jacket, a yellow button with a green peace symbol and one word, "Amchitka. We used to sell this button for twenty-five cents in 1970 and ’71 to try to raise the $18,000 we needed to charter the Phyllis Cormack. It preceded the green and yellow button we sold next which said "Greenpeace", a word Bill Darnell came up with at a meeting one night.
It is absolutely surreal to be standing on the deck of the Espy, nearing what was in 1971 the only refuge for sea otters in the world, a refuge that we all tried so hard to save from a series of nuclear tests. An island halfway between Russia and the USA. An island so remote few human beings besides Aleuts and members of the U.S. military, have ever been here. A destination now completely void of any human presence whatsoever.
I feel suddenly as if my father and mother, Irving and Dorothy Stowe, who helped start Greenpeace, are here with me, holding my hands. I feel as if my Greenpeace aunts and uncles, Marie and Jim Bohlen, Bob and Zoe Hunter, and so many others who used to meet in our living room, are here too I flash on my brother Bob too, who was largely resposible for 10,000 highschool students walking out of class to protest the atomic blasts here. I’m going to touch the soil of Amchitka Island for him, for them.
Although, truth be told, I’m going to touch it as little as possible. Despite assurances by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission that any radiation was contained, Greenpeace scientists found radioactive isotopes in groundwater and fish here in 1996. Everyone on this boat is nervous about landing on these shores.
Diek, who seems to have second sight, spots it first. "There." He points to a jutting shape like a looming sandcastle in the dark fog. A bright white light rims the horizon, like curious icing on a wedding cake. Too bright. I’ve never seen light like this and nor has Diek in his thirteen years on the sea. I can’t help thinking that it looks like nothing so much as a thick dusting of nuclear fallout. Suddenly the cold I haven’t felt all morning, even though I’m only in a thin coat, gets to me, and I step inside.
After we drop anchor the crew gathers to discuss what we’re going to do on the island, and then Pete sends an exploratory party out in a zodiac to penetrate the fog and figure out where we can come ashore. The kelp beds are thick around here, which is what used to attract the sea otters, and our zodiacs could get kelp tangled in their propellers.
I hide in the mess. How desparately I’ve wanted to see Amchitka, and now I feel nothing but dread. What are we doing, coming to the site of the biggest underground nuclear test in U.S. history? How much radiation is there on the island? Why don’t we just turn around and get the hell out of here? I’m ashamed of my cowardice, although I know I’m not the only one are having these thoughts. I know that workers at the test site have died from unusually high levels of radiation-related diseases but I rationalize that the exposure we’ll have, in a day or two here, will be minimal. On the other hand, I’m fifty years old, not young like our videographer Brent who muttered darkly "I want to have children," in a meeting several nights ago.
NEXT: We touch that soil...those rocks...and march through muskeg to the eerie site of thirty-acre large Lake Cannikin, created by the nuke blast.