Best Summer Job - Sailing The High Seas at 16 - Part III

As my first real summer job, five months on board Canadian Coast Guard vessels was definitely in the best ever category. And when you throw in a trip to the Arctic, it became pretty hard to top. This was an extraordinary encounter made all the more fun because it was so unanticipated and it started with skipping school. This is Part III of III of The Best Summer Job Ever.

We cleared temperate waters and charted through the Strait of Belle Isle, the Labrador Sea, Davis Strait and into Baffin Bay beyond the Arctic Circle at 66° 33’. The days seemed endless, an undulating horizon, grey expanses, little to break up the isolation. The muted tones of Baffin Island’s sheer striated cliffs were our only visual relief. Thank goodness for our on board diversions – three beers per day, table tennis in an empty hold back aft and, for the newbies, our induction by baptism in freezing water to the Order of the Bluenose. Having sailed into the northern polar regions, we had now become official companions of King Neptune and his cronies.

Finally, we hit landfall in Thule, Greenland – 1,100 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. North Star Bay was a spectacular delight. There were scores of icebergs bobbing in bright sunlight each an individual sculpture carved and teased by windy sea. After two or three weeks in confined quarters these crystalline reflections were like long, cool drinks, sirens leading us to safe harbour.

Thule was our one appreciable foray ashore during the trip. We whooped it up at the BX filling our faces to a level of piggishness that surpassed even our habitual excesses. We were after all in an outpost of the home of the free and the brave and we felt a need to demonstrate our manliness to the Yanks. This was their northernmost air force base and in ’74 it must have been a plum assignment because it meant you weren’t flying missions into Vietnam.

Liquor was cheap and plentiful on the base. Just over two dollars for a 40 pounder. The official word from the chief mate to us bejeezly labourers was that the booze was off bounds. None was to come on board. It’s a good thing that no one took the prohibition edict too seriously because over a few hours the base BX was nearly sucked dry and the Canadian boys had ample hard liquor to consume for the rest of the voyage.

Our next and last landfall was the community of Resolute Bay a couple of weeks after our Thule escapade. We steamed west and north through the channels separating Bylot Island from Baffin Island. Just offshore of Pond Inlet, two Inuit kayakers glided across the sound’s smooth surface. They came to trade. That evening, crew and officers ate arctic char. The Inuit made their way to shore with tobacco and alcohol we had purchased in Thule.

Everyone was promised a trip to Resolute long enough to make a phone call. The Louis’ draft was too much so she had to sit offshore, the largest human imprint for hundreds of miles. We were ferried there and back three at a time on the ship’s helicopter. This virginal helicopter ride pretty much beat anything I had ever tried on the carnival midway. We were ship to shore in a couple of minutes whirligigging over abandoned wreckage that lay where it had crashed on the approaches to the airstrip.

The phones were well used that afternoon with calls south to loved ones. We only had a few minutes each and it was sometimes a little difficult to hear what was being said through the satellite skip. This time delay echo was like a third party companion on the call interjecting with comments that had already been made.

After this brief respite in the town that had signposts for the North Pole, South Pole, Las Vegas and Columbia it was back to sea. Aside from delivering supplies for a scientific expedition based on Ellesmere Island, it didn’t seem like we had accomplished a lot. In fact, we only broke ice once and that seemed to be at the whim of the officer on the bridge. To the untrained eye, it looked like we could have skirted the floe without too much of a diversion. It must have been a challenge for the ice observers on board to keep at the top of their game, to maintain some form of motivation.

Not that I was complaining. School had already started back south and here I was raking in the dollars as the night steward supporting the officers on watch with coffee and snacks. Every morning at the end of my shift I racked up two hours overtime to butter toast destined for the officers’ palates. I liked the money but I detested the rank separation of officers and crew. The worlds were physically separate – different messes, different accommodations, different
off-hour gathering spots. There was virtually no socializing, no fraternizing across these two solitudes.

As we started steaming south for Halifax the shipping lanes were closing behind us. Open channels were fewer and fewer. The season of small steel ships was over as the crushing ice expanded its grip. Now I was getting eyed up as the steward that would provide dedicated service to the old man, the captain’s kiddy. For a couple of weeks I cleaned his stateroom and served meals in his private dining room but I have no recollection of the man, his likes, or dislikes, any words he shared with me. But apparently he wanted me to be on duty for him.

By the time we tied up in Dartmouth my desire for the sailing life had greatly diminished. I was lonely for home and had missed family and friends. There was an expectation from the Chief Steward, or at least a desire, that I would be staying on in the captain’s kiddy role.

I didn’t have the heart, or the courage, to let them know I was leaving. Despite the adventure and the good wages, I knew I had to get out and get on with the business of completing high school. I called my Dad and asked him if he would drive the 300 kilometers round trip to pick me up and bring me home right away. He never hesitated, never questioned my judgment. He just came to get me and took me back home. I was so happy to see him. I walked down the gangway that night a few inches closer to being an adult, to being a man, but still very glad to be a son, a boy loved by his parents.

The New York Times recently reported that the Arctic is experiencing growing stress. Many scientists believe it is a weathervane for our global ecosystems – its health is a pre-requisite for planetary well-being.

To chart the Louis St. Laurent’s modern day journeys, visit this tracking map.

P.S. Unlike some hapless teens that signed on board in the summer of ’74, I was never sent to the Purser’s Office to ask for my masturbation papers and, after five months at sea with the men, I managed to stave off my desire for a crazy, colourful, trumpeting tattoo…………..