"She had accommodation for thirteen men on board...on the deck, immediately abaft the main mast, was a little pilot-or wheel house, divided up so that it also provided a small cabin for the skipper...The gallery was a tiny little hole aft. Below where our cook could scarcely turn around..." -Capt. Henry Larsen, St. Roch, circa 1944-50.
Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services
Cambridge Bay (Aug 21/00) - Luke Novoligak was a young boy the last time he saw Henry Larsen.
Larsen bought five dogs from Novoligak's mother and father, just before his mother went to the hospital.
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"He was a good man," said Novoligak through interpreter Beatrice Bernhardt. "He was like an Inuit person. He was good with people and never asked for money."
The St. Roch II arrived at Cambridge Bay Aug. 12, stirring up ghosts for Novoligak and one of the original crew members of the St. Roch, Bill Cashen, who travelled this time around on the escort vessel Simon Fraser from Tuktoyaktuk to Cambridge Bay.
"I never thought I'd be back here," said Cashen, who now lives in Carmacks, Yukon. "I stayed here (Cambridge Bay) in the winter of 1945-46.
"It's hard to remember back 56 years, but there were quite a few ice bergs. It was pretty miserable. Not like it is this year."
Cashen, who turned 72 in June, had his 17th birthday on the St. Roch.
Cashen's skipper was Larsen, who sailed the original St. Roch, an RCMP patrol ship, across the Northwest Passage, west to east, for the first time in history between 1940-42, before backtracking and becoming the first to do it both ways.
Preserving a piece of Canadian history
The St. Roch II's attempt to retrace the original voyage sprouts from both romanticism and necessity.
The original St. Roch is dry-rotting in the Vancouver Maritime Museum because funds are running low.
In 1958, the St. Roch became part of the museum and upkeep was funded by Parks Canada. In 1995, funding was cut and the museum was left to foot the bill.
The museum currently spends $82,000 on the St. Roch, meeting the bare essentials, but it's turning to dust.
The current St. Roch II tour is to raise awareness and funds for the historic vessel.
The museum is spending $3 million on the trip.
According to the museum's executive director James Delgado, the response from corporate Canada to date has been cold, but this journey means more than just dollars.
"We felt a strong need to find a secure future for the original," said Delgado, who wrote a book on the Northwest Passage entitled Across the Top of the World.
"This has been very rewarding for all of us. This trip is of great significance to the North, to Canada."
For the captain of St. Roch II, Ken Burton, the trip has been both professionally and personally challenging.
Sailing 240 kilometres east of Cambridge Bay under clear blue sky and 20 knot winds, Burton said he was honoured to be chosen as skipper of the 66-foot-long aluminum catamaran.
"The story of the St. Roch needs to be told," he said. "This is a challenge of the highest order."
Along the way, the St. Roch II is searching for the ghosts of two long-lost ships, Erebus and Terror, from the Sir John Franklin expedition.
It left Vancouver on Canada Day and will be stopping in Gjoa Haven Aug. 22.
