Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services

Tuktoyaktuk (Aug 14/00) - This is anything but an ordinary voyage.

The St. Roch II Voyage of Rediscovery -- which involves a 22,000 nautical mile trip around North America -- is all about celebrating the past.

Fact File: St. Roch II is RCMP patrol vessel Nadon which has been renamed for duration of voyage. Ship is 66-foot long, aluminum catamaran. Cruising speed, 25 knots, top speed, 40 knots. Ship expected to set several maritime records with this voyage, including becoming the smallest vessel ever to circumnavigate North America. St. Roch II escorted by support ship, Simon Fraser, manned by volunteers. Voyage of Rediscovery began July 1 in Vancouver, scheduled to end back in Vancouver around Jan. 1, 2001.

"It's a chance to celebrate the history of the St. Roch," explained Sgt. Ken Burton, captain of the St. Roch II, "and an opportunity to thank the communities who helped the St. Roch in their passages from, really, 1929 through to 1949, the 20 years it worked up here."

Burton said the Voyage of Rediscovery is based upon an historic journey made during the years 1942-44. The RCMP patrol vessel St. Roch, captained by Henry Larsen, became the first vessel to cross the Northwest Passage from west to east.

The original St. Roch is located in the Vancouver Maritime Museum, where it suffers from dry rot and an uncertain future. Another purpose of the Voyage of Rediscovery is to raise funds for an endowment fund that will be used to help preserve the St. Roch.

On July 1, 2000 the St. Roch II pulled out of Vancouver. It is to cross the Northwest Passage, travel along the east coast of North America, slip through the Panama Canal, and sail back to Vancouver on or before Jan. 1, 2001.

August 4, the St. Roch II arrived in Tuktoyaktuk, leaving three days later. It was the first vessel to reach Tuktoyaktuk from the west, beating its support ship, Simon Fraser, and the ice breaker Sir Wilfred Laurier.

The St. Roch II stopped in Kugluktuk last week and was to reach Cambridge Bay over the weekend.

First Arctic patrol

Burton has been involved in the project to some extent for five years, and full time for the past two.

"I've been with the RCMP 18 years. I've been with marine services for 10, the last six as captain of a vessel similar to this one," Burton said.

"We would normally do coastal patrols between Washington and Alaska. This is the first time the Mounties have mounted an Arctic patrol in some 25 years."

A feast was held in Tuk to celebrate the St. Roch II's arrival.

Those involved in the journey returned the favour with some gifts of their own. They left behind letters written by children in a school near Vancouver, with the hope school children in Tuk will write back. Burton said they plan to do this in all the communities they visit.

"Part of the funding we received from a federal government source is to be used to digitize some of the 5,000 images that are in storage at the Vancouver Maritime Museum, the vast majority of them taken by crew members of the St. Roch," Burton said.

"They're all being digitized and being presented to the communities as an interactive CD."

People can look at the photos and contact the museum if they are able to identify where or when the photo was taken, or who is in it.

"It's nice to be here and talk to people who remember being on the St. Roch or interacted with Henry Larsen," Burton said.

"We're also travelling with a film crew that's producing an extensive documentary film on the event. They're having an interesting spinoff in that we're recording each and every community along the coast of North America we're touching."