Posted by pribilof on 09/12/2007 6:50 pm

Thirty six years ago this month, September 1971 President Richard M. Nixon said, perhaps from his oval office in the White House, “FIRE!” Suddenly the entire Island of Amchitka, in the Aleutian Island Chain, erupted. Boom! The ground heaved in sudden turmoil, ripped apart. Wildlife, unprotected and not even given a warning, suddenly were thrashed to the point that even the eyeballs of the sea otter slammed through their skulls. Birds ran, literally, and some flew, to find cover. The world shook and would never be the same. The largest underground nuclear test bomb in history was triggered on and in Alaska; on and in an Island Chain that is on the Great Pacific Ring of Fire. A big bomb, suddenly destroying a National Wildlife Refuge.

I was there last month as part of a team of people from Greenpeace to bear witness. I walked up steep unforgiving cliffs, slogged through deep tundra, crawling to the exact site of the test, of a nuclear bomb they called Cannikin. And it was….wow, lack of words. Scary. We did this on a National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. And today, although there is lots of greens, plants, berries and fresh water, we could not, dared not even taste of this dirge. It is, was, and perhaps forever will be dead.

Greenpeace went there because thirty-six years ago, we got started by a few people in Vancouver B.C. who felt, as we all do today, that this act was not acceptable, not in Alaska, not anywhere. We went there because we wanted to bear witness that we must not allow anything like this to happen anywhere in the world again. We must not build bombs to destroy anything; people, plants; animals; the earth, our Mother Earth.

While there, one has so much to think and meditate about. It is silent. Empty. It is alone. By itself. Not a part of any other thing. Not even a partner to its neighboring Islands. Not even a self-respecting jellyfish was seen. And we could not drink the water!

Now, we did this with the idea that perhaps we might be able to warn the Soviet Government of Russia that we have big bombs, that we are someone to be afraid of, that we are powerful. The result of that thinking? They built more and bigger bombs with nary an end in sight.

Sadly, being at Amchitka was like looking into a future devoid of life. Even more sad is that perhaps what happened there is in some sense happening again, but this time with another big bomb, and right under our noses. Like that bomb, legal and sanctioned by our United States Government, is the bomb of bottom trawlers, legal and sanctioned by the same Government. They are destroying the habitat of the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska, and are protected by our laws to do so. We saw that. We witnessed their destructive fishing practices by diving into the underwater canyons by the Pribilof Islands. Just like being at ground zero on Amchitka, by Cannikin lake, we were at ground zero in the Pribilof and Zumchug Canyons.  They are almost totally devoid of life and history is repeating itself. It is happening in Alaska, on the most productive Oceans and Seas of the North Pacific.

We planted a cross there. We wanted, when doing this, and want to, express our desire that no longer is it acceptable to kill and destroy, no matter the form or manner. Once life is gone, as was evident on Amchitka, we cannot pray or will life back. We saw the future and we must not allow it to come, not in that form. So, now comes the marine cultural heritage zones. Perhaps these zones will be our cross, one which we are told to pick up and carry. Perhaps by establishing some protections for our foods to survive, we will not allow someone, five thousand miles away to say, “FIRE!” Perhaps we can learn from our history and put an end to building and enabling ways to destroy. Perhaps we can. But you must help by doing your part. You must join us in commemorating an awful time in our history, if for no other reason than to say, we will not participate.

Posted by pribilof on 09/03/2007 1:03 pm

We are pulling into Dutch Harbor/Unalaska for the fourth and last time during this whirlewind tour of the Bering Sea. And it is both an end and a beginning for me. We came to the Bering Sea to bear witness to the world, to ourselves, to what is happening not only to the beautiful ecosystem of water and fish and mammals and birds and plants, but as equally important, how change is impacting an ancient people. And what a vision we had, looking and listening.

And because of what we heard and saw, there is no doubt what so ever, even if there was any to begin with, that the establishment of the marine cultural heritage zones is the only moral, realistic and honest way to the survival of this incrediable gift to humanity all over the world. This gift to our people, to all peoples, is a gift given by our ancestors following centuries of daily sacrifices, learnings, insight and fortitude to pass on to their decendents a responsibility we must not take lightly. A responsibility to cherish life.

Other ways of doing things foreign to our ways are no less critical to similar goals. The phrase "work with what you got" is always used to somehow limit our imaginations, I guess. But in this case, in the case of the needs of the Bering Sea, we have to be more creative. Without a doubt, this is the last place on earth that literally has a chance to be cared for and cared for properly. Oh I am sure that statements such as that can and will be made to try to defend our oceans all over this planet we call Earth, but for me, for us, this really is true. We can only bump up to a line which says, this belongs to Russia, on this side of the line, and this belongs to America, on this side of the line. And each will go to war to defend those claims. We are stuck in between those two super powers, powers that make laws and enforce them with vigor.

We, on the other hand, must create an atmosphere of rightness to find a balance between the needs for these resources. The question is; can we find that balance before it is too late, not only for ourselves, but for the Bering Sea/Gulf of Alaska? For after all we are talking about the same person/thing here. There is no difference between the resources and the people. We are one and the same. We too are critical to the survival of this delacate system. We too must be respected as worthy of salvation. We too must be considered critical to the overall health of our environment, for it is afterall we who provide the balance to the question of resource development. We are making the arguement, and that arguement is what must be heard. We need marine cultural heritage zones.

As we approach our spot, a place to park our Esperanza, our hope, let us consider our place in this tour. Are we mearly voyours looking into someone else's plight or are we participants to finding solutions to our conditions. We each, all of us, have a stake. We must realize that for we ancient peoples to survive, all of us must survive. For afterall, our planet we call Mother Earth is waiting and waiting patiently to see what we are going to do.

Until Next Time.

 

George 

Posted by kieran_mulvaney on 09/02/2007 10:08 pm

It has been, as two reasonably famous songwriters once put it, a long and winding road, one that has lasted, on and off, for more than eighteen years now.  And, theoretically, once we drop anchor in Dutch Harbor on Monday morning, it is a journey that—apart from a couple of days of post-expedition wrap-up and video editing—will come to an end.

Except that I have said as much many times before. It isn’t even the first time I’ve said it this year.

I remember distinctly a conversation with Lesley Scheele. It was November 1988, and she and I were sitting on the patio of the Fort Lauderdale house she shared with her husband, Ed Simmons. Ed and Lesley ran what was known as Greenpeace Southeast, which was the regional office for Florida and environs, and Lesley was also the coordinator for the international small cetaceans campaign (that’s whales and dolphins, for those who are wondering). I was at the time a neophyte environmental campaigner, the wide-eyed, 20-year-old director of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

My visit didn’t start at all well. I had appeared a day before Lesley was expecting me (these were in the days when correspondence took the form of letters typed or printed on actual paper, and sent in envelopes via airplane across the ocean; occasionally such letters went astray or arrived late) and she was out of town. Ed, who had no idea who I was, nonetheless recognized me as the kind of person who might show up at his house to talk about dolphins with his wife, told me to make myself at home, and encouraged me to take advantage of the Florida sun.

All of which was well and good, but I was possessed of the pale complexion characteristic of denizens of the British Isles, and brief exposure to the elements of the Sunshine State turned me the approximate shade of St. George’s Cross. Ed, his generally impassive face allowing itself to register what I interpreted as a combination of pity and mild disgust, gave me some sunscreen. The sunscreen appeared to attract mosquitoes, so I applied insect repellant. The interaction between the sunscreen and the repellant induced a hideous rash.

I was sunburned and covered in a patchwork of hives and mosquito bites. I was not happy.

But Lesley showed up and, in her perpetually friendly and welcoming way, soon had me forgetting my various ailments. And I couldn’t have made too bad an impression because two months later I was working for Greenpeace, out of the organization’s international headquarters—which, at the time, were housed above a newspaper office in the small English market town of Lewes. (Yes, things were different then).

I didn’t realize that, as I sat (for the rest of my visit, in the shade) talking cetaceans with Lesley, I was being scouted as a prospect worthy of being called up to the major leagues (which, Lesley later confessed, I was). But I do remember two comments she made about Greenpeace.

One, as she lit up yet another cigarette, took note of the fact that she was far from alone in her addiction.

“You get three or more Greenpeacers together, you have to file an environmental impact statement,” she chuckled.

I don’t have any idea why the second comment registered with me so readily, given that at the time I had no inkling of ever joining The Firm. But it did, and it has proven, in my case, to be remarkably apposite.

“You haven’t really been with Greenpeace until you’ve quit or been fired at least twice,” she laughed. Or maybe it was three times. That detail, I’m a little hazy on. Either way, it’s the perfect description of my Greenpeace career, and the key, I suspect, to its longevity: I doubt I would have been around for almost two decades, on and off, had my involvement not been less on than off.

My most recent spell, two years with Greenpeace USA, came to a close at the end of May, but I leapt at this assignment for the chance to go to Amchitka. When this is done, I expect to return to the freelance world, and the joy of working only as many hours a day as I choose—which, given the lack of income security, tends to be about sixteen, but still.

And so, with this expedition all but done and dusted, and the ship quiet as we battle the swells on our way back to Dutch Harbor, the mind drifts back to those early days and all that has happened since.

It is frequently the way on ships. Different crew interact and sail together over the years, bringing stories of former shipmates and campaigns old and new, and the very presence of certain crew members immediately prompts shared recollections of past voyages. But this expedition has prompted historical reflection more than most.

In no small measure, that has been because of our most westerly (and easterly) destination: Amchitka, the grail of that very first Greenpeace voyage. Steaming west along the Aleutians on board the comfortable Esperanza, thoughts frequently turned to the entirely less forgiving circumstances of the Phyllis Cormack’s journey in these same waters.

As an adjunct to that, the presence of Barbara Stowe on board has not only added a delightful character, it has also exposed us to first-hand observations of the minutiae of those earliest of Greenpeace days. Whatever issues I have been working out on what may or may not be my last Greenpeace voyage, they are as nothing compared to what Barbara has been going through and feeling. I admire her tremendously for joining us and fitting in so easily; and on a personal level, seeing Barbara battling with her emotions as she did what her father could not and stood at the Cannikin test site was a tremendously moving experience, and one that made my own trip worthwhile.

But it is also impossible to avoid thinking and talking about the past in the company of a captain like Pete, whose history with the organization is not only long—he has been a Greenpeace skipper for the best part of 25 years—but eventful. Pete was the skipper when the Rainbow Warrior famously sped into Russian waters to document whale meat being fed to farmed mink, and during the evacuation of the people of Rongelap from their radioactive atoll to the nearby island of Mejato. And he was captain when the Rainbow Warrior was bombed in Auckland harbor in 1985.

Pete gathered us in the wheelhouse the other evening to share his memories of the Rongelap campaign and the Warrior’s bombing—and, like Barbara’s less formal tales, told in the lounge during breaks in Scrabble games, or over dinner in the mess, they left an impression on those who heard them.

At the end of his talk, there was a brief back-and-forth about the nature and evolution of the organization, and how the Warrior bombing, combined with a concomitant surge in interest in environmental issues, led to a massive expansion in Greenpeace. While that expansion was followed, particularly in the United States, by a subsequent contraction, the organization has never been the same since.

Whether that is for better or for worse is a matter of opinion. But Greenpeace is clearly a different outfit than when I joined, than when the Warrior was bombed, and certainly than when Jim Bohlen, Bob Hunter, and ten others set out in the Phyllis Cormack in 1971. There are few clearer signs of that change than the vessel on which I am presently writing this blog.

There’s no two ways about it: The Esperanza is an impressive ship. There was a time in the past when the organization would never have countenanced buying such a large craft, would have considered it somehow unseemly or inappropriate. But, equipped with diesel-electric propulsion, it is surprisingly, even shockingly, fuel efficient, and it is also hugely practical: comfortable, quiet, and extraordinarily maneuverable. I confessed to Pete last night that I hadn’t even noticed that we had pulled away from the dock at Adak the other evening, so smooth and quiet had been the operation: a stark contrast to the rumbling and snorting that would have accompanied that maneuver on any number of past Greenpeace ships.

For both Pete and me, this has been our first time on this newest Greenpeace vessel, and it stands in sharp contrast to my first Greenpeace voyage, on board the MV Sirius: a ship much beloved by everyone in the organization who didn’t actually have to sail it out into the open ocean. It had character, sure enough, especially if character can be defined as lurching from side to side in a gale. I would not want to be on the Sirius during the weather we are experiencing right now. I certainly wouldn’t want to be typing this blog.

Another sign of organizational change, also for the better, is having the foresight and commitment to run an unconventional, ostensibly low-key and long-term campaign such as the one it is running in the Bering Sea.

This has in many ways been an unusual and not always comfortable experience for me, in that my previous on-board experiences (except that first trip on the Sirius) have been as expedition leader or lead campaigner, and frequently for three months or more. I am not accustomed to hopping on for the final couple of weeks and playing a bit part. But it has been instructive and informative, and it has been a real pleasure to see George at work, not so much talking to villagers as gently reassuring them that, bleak as things may seem, everything can be OK. I don’t know what the future holds for these Bering Sea communities; it is difficult, frankly, to feel optimistic at times. But if they do survive and thrive, it will be in large part because of the work done by this wise and decent man over the next few years.

I will be back to the Bering Sea, of that I have no doubt. I will be back because Alaska means so much to me, because I care about the region—and because Amchitka, to my surprise, has become my white whale, leaving me feeling, in some ways, less fulfilled than before I got there and needing to return to put those feelings to rest.

I don’t know whether I will still (or again) be a part of Greenpeace when I make that return journey, whenever it may be. But after nearly twenty years, I’m quite certain that Greenpeace will still, and will always, be a part of me.

 

Posted by stoweaway on 09/01/2007 2:55 pm

After seeing Amchitka, one really wants to drink like a sailor. A bottle of rum would come in handy around now. But no. On this ship, we drink only wine and a brand of beer from Korea which promises "Fresh Taste Brewing System". If this is fresh, we would hate to see stale.
The Korean beverage is a brand called "Hite". We only need to add the 19th letter of the alphabet before "Hite" to title it even more appropriately. No doubt this extraordinary drink was scientifically concocted to function for drinkers just as the nicotine patch functions for smokers.
There is also something called "wine", but that is even a sadder tale. The really frightening aspect of all this is when admittedly, after consuming a liberal portion of dark chocolate, which seems to alter taste buds considerably…the Sh…I mean, the Hite, starts to taste not so bad. We may drink like Espy sailors, but we hope to soon drink like landlubbers.
There are other peculiarities on this boat. Why are there only butter knives in the mess? Is it dangerous to have a little serrated knife for cutting your apple, because if the sea takes a sudden notion to mess your boat around on the ocean, you might slice your neighbour’s eye out? Or is it because ALMOST everyone here has massive muscles and cutting slices of cheese for a snack or chicken for dinner is not exactly a problem for THEM? Why are everything from the mirrors in the cabins to the giant can of peanut butter in the mess placed at a height that, for those not over 5’4", necessitates toe-dancing? (Note to balletic niece Rachel: it will come in handy). Why are there only large plates, no small ones? Why does the toaster toast on one side only? What does the cryptic instruction in the mess to "clean the elephant skin on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays" mean? Why would a Greenpeace boat be carrying elephant skin? What does the scrawled note "Might as well jump" on the board the morning after the zombie party in the bar in Adak mean?
Despite these unanswered questions, newbies soon fit in around here. They swab decks, come to understand what bulkheads and bullards are. One day they realize they haven’t sat in a chair for days, only on the benches in the mess and (sprawled across) the cushioned benches in the lounge. They walk like Charlie Chaplin. As for swearing, some may never catch up with whoever has written on the Campaign Room blackboard: "Individually we are one small drop…Together, One Big F…ing Drop" (there was no "…" but my mother-in-law might be reading this). They smoke like sailors, i.e., whenever they want to enjoy the fresh air. And they miss the land when they’re at sea, and the sea when they’re on land.