Captain's Table - Winter 2019

The
Captain’s
Table
VOLUME 3
WINTER 2019
MEMBERS MAGAZINE
VMM 60th Anniversary
1959 - 2019: A Pictorial History
Part 1
From the archives -
Henry Larsen's
Report Cards
Barbara Stowe Interview
GROWING UP
WITH GREENPEACE

EDITORIAL
menu
Happy New Year....
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Greetings from Dr. Joost
Schokkenbroek - Executive Director
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Henry Larsen's Report Cards
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Barbara Stowe Interview -
Growing Up with Greenpeace
VMM 60th Anniversary 1959-2019
A Pictorial History - Part 1
Dr. Joost Schokkenbroek
Executive Director
Dear Members of the Vancouver
Maritime Museum,
1959 - 2019
Happy New Year to all of you! What a great year is it going to be for the Vancouver Maritime Museum. We will continue
to celebrate St. Roch’s 90th birthday until May. In June we start celebrating the 60th birthday of the museum. We are
lining up lots of wonderful events – a new exhibition on the history of the VMM, music festivals, lecture series and family
festivities. We will continue to inform you via the monthly Newsletter and The Captain’s Table – the quarterly magazine
exclusively developed for you, our distinguished members.
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This third issue contains a sneak preview of the history of the museum. Also, we draw attention to the Making Waves
exhibition (about the history and legacy of Greenpeace), as Barbara Stowe kindly agreed to share with our Curator
Duncan Macleod how she has experienced her parents’ involvement in the establishment of this world-famous
environmental organization.
Over the last few months we have organized a series of public programs related to the history of Arctic exploration.
Henry Larsen, captain of the St. Roch, has played a crucial role in this history. Clare Sully-Stendhal takes us back to
Larsen’s childhood and early school years, with interesting data and a fascinating picture of Larsen, age 4 or 5,
appropriately dressed up in sailor’s outfit. Please enjoy reading this issue and do let us know how you appreciate
The Captain’s Table.
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VMM Members Magazine
1905 Ogden Avenue
Vancouver, BC V6J 1A3
604.257.8300
Publisher
Andrew Hildred
Editor
Kurt von Hahn
vanmaritime.com
Dr. Joost C.A. Schokkenbroek
Executive Director
cover photo: Google Images
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HENRY LARSEN'S REPORT CARDS
By Clare Sully-Stendahl
The front page explains that this is Henry Asbjørn Larsen’s
gradebook from the Herføl primary school at Hvaler. The text
at the bottom of the page explains the grading system used by
the school. Students were given a number ranging from one
to six, where 1 signifies excellent, 2 very good, 3 pretty good, 4
less good, 5 average and 6 struggled.
IT'S A NEW YEAR AND IT'S BACK TO SCHOOL. WHAT COULD BE MORE
APPROPRIATE FOR THE OCCASION THAN HENRY LARSEN’S CHILDHOOD
REPORT CARD BOOK?
HENRY'S REPORT CARD
Larsen grew up to become
commander of the St. Roch
for almost two decades,
and the most senior RCMP
officer in the Arctic. His life
began, however, on the small
island Herføl in the Hvaler
municipality of Norway.
He was born on September
30, 1899 on Herføl, but was
orphaned as an infant and
was raised by family in
Sweden. When he was six or
seven, he returned to Herføl
for school.
NORWAY'S GRADING SYSTEM
SHOWS GOOD DILIGENCE
The first report card in the book, from
the spring when Larsen was nine
years old, reveals that his strongest
subject was Christian studies and
his weakest was arithmetic, although
he still achieved a pretty good 3. He
was assigned a grade of 2.20 overall.
Interestingly, each report card also
included a grade for “Flid” (diligence)
and “Opforsel” (behaviour). Larsen
scored a 2+ for diligence and a 1.5 for
behaviour.
HERFØL, NORWAY
YOUNG HENRY
In his autobiography The Big Ship, Larsen writes “I was
born and raised in Norway near the mouth of the Oslo
Fiord, where the sea not only provided most people’s
livelihood, but was also the main highway. The sea
became my great love from the moment when I first set
out with the pilot boats during my summer holidays.
Then followed small jobs on all kinds of pleasure vessels
and an occasional adventure with the fishing boats. But I
was still only a boy and the school bell was still stronger
than those of the many ships in the harbour.”
Larsen’s report card book from four of those school bell
years – 1909-1913 – is on display here at the Museum. For
today’s post, I looked inside (with a little help from Google
Translate) to get a glimpse of his schooldays.
Although his next term’s report includes a comment along the lines
that he is sometimes uneasy and dislikes the school, his grades overall
only seem to improve over the years. No absences, either excused or
unexcused, are recorded, and by 1911 the comment “Meget godt” (very
good) regularly appears. As Larsen grew older, he also began to study a
wider range of classes. His first few report cards include only Christian
studies, Norwegian oral, arithmetic, and writing, but by the end of 1911
he also received grades in geography, history, and nature study. The next
term, needlework was added to the roster.
Larsen’s autobiography includes only a brief mention of his experience at
school, when he writes that “History and geography became my favourite
subjects and I developed an early yearning for new lands and a curiosity
for the history of the past. Our teachers encouraged and helped me to
further reading in the small school library, where I soon had read every
book on geography, particularly those dealing with the polar regions.
I was immediately fascinated by the books written by such people as
Fridtjof Nansen, Roald Amundsen and Otto Sverdrup, and, of course,
Vilhjalmur Stefansson.” When he first studied geography at the age of 11
in 1910, it was the lowest grade of his entire report card book: a 4. By the
next year, however, geography and history were among his top marks at
1.5 each; useful skills for the future captain of the St. Roch.
EXCELS AT HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY
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MODEL BOATS
“Greenpeace needs to mirror a healthy psychological
approach and to be this tower of force and courage”
MAKING WAVES-GREENPEACE
Growing Up Greenpeace -
an interview with Barbara
Stowe
A special installment to our Making
Waves - The Story & Legacy of
Greenpeace exhibition.
We were very fortunate to
have Barbara Stowe,
daughter of Greenpeace
founders Irving and Dorothy
Stowe, drop by the VMM and speak with
our curator, Duncan MacLeod, about
what it was like growing up in the early
days of Greenpeace.
Duncan MacLeod: Being the daughter of
the founders of Greenpeace, what was it
like to grow up in this environment?
Barbara Stowe: It was exciting, it was
stressful, it was educational. It was all of
these things.
Duncan: Did you have any particular
memorable moments from early on?
Barbara: Yes, there was one moment that
has always stayed with me when we first
went out to sell the Greenpeace buttons.
Nobody had ever heard of Greenpeace.
And my brother and I thought this was
going to look really stupid because the
button maker could not fit the words
‘green’ and ‘peace’, which were separate
at that time, in one line with the font
artist Marie Bolen had designated. So
when you put them together you got
this one word Greenpeace. I thought this
doesn't make any sense, we are going to
look stupid, like it was a mistake. Instead
people started coming up to us. Usually
when we were selling buttons on the
street people would run away. Just like
me, I do not like being approached by
people on the street, I avert my eyes, I
don't want to engage. But people came
up to us and said ‘Greenpeace, what’s
that’? And one hippy girl with really
long blonde hair, and the hippy handkerchief,
floaty dress came up and said
‘Greenpeace, what’s that’? And then she
turned to her boyfriend and said ‘I don't
care, it's pretty, buy me one’. And in that
moment I thought OK, something has
changed here.
Duncan: And did you think that was
something particular to Vancouver at
the time?
Barbara: Hmmm, I think at the time,
certain things were coalescing here that
were unique, that a lot of people who
were resisting the draft, young men were
being drafted in unprecedented
numbers in the United States and during
the war were coming back in body bags
- it was tearing families apart and some
of these young men and their families
where fleeing up here for safety and they
came to a place where the environment
is more important to people here in
Vancouver and in BC than anything else
in general it seems. It’s not a huge cultural
mecca like New York or Paris or London.
People come because they revere the
outdoors - because we can see whales.
And I think it’s a combination of these
factors; this extreme love and care for the
environment; this activism that was being
born because of the Vietnam war, I think
these factors coalesced along with some
kind of… Bono said once, to my mother,
‘I think there is something that can
happen on the West Coast that can’t
happen anywhere else… that there’s
some kind of spirit here’. Maybe it’s the
long, long history of indigenous peoples
who have been connected with the land
for so long. I don’t know, there is some
energy and spirit here'. Maybe it’s the
long, long history of indigenous peoples
who have been connected with the land
for so long. I don’t know, there is some
energy and spirit here that’s different.
Duncan: What do you see as the
principal role of Greenpeace in the world
and what are the major challenges facing
Greenpeace in fulfilling that role today?
Barbara: Well, Greenpeace is a leading
force for change in the most important
battle that is going on with the planet
to stop climate change; to preserve the
environment, which includes human
beings who are not separate and apart,
and never have been from the
environment; and to wage this peaceful
battle, not only for green but for peace.
Greenpeace has had to, in recent years,
partner with indigenous peoples; overcome
some painful past-histories – seal
hunting for instance. That partnership
continues to grow and grow. That is a
major challenge and I think that it’s
possibly it’s major strength. I think one of
the challenges is that people still don’t
know what Greenpeace does – besides
the actions they see. I didn’t even know
that Greenpeace does things like when
there is a disaster in Haiti they send their
ship to help Doctors Without Borders – I
didn’t know this until a sailor happened
to email and tell me. They also helped
with those disastrous fires in Greece.
Greenpeace does so many things that it
won’t publicize because it’s not going to
piggyback on disasters just for PR. It does
them quietly and people don’t know.
Greenpeace has so much support now
and power in the world that they only do
an action if they have to. If the
corporation knows, for instance, that
Greenpeace is considering an action, they
may think twice - so there may be hidden
dialogues going on that the public is
never going to see but that cause
enormous change. I think that’s a big
challenge for Greenpeace – how do you
say these things? Of course the major
challenge is the cognitive dissonance
we are all living with; how do we remain
optimistic in the face of climate change
and what’s going on in the world today. I
found out today that one of Greenpeace’s
guiding principle is that ‘optimism is a
form of courage’. And I think that is a huge
challenge, that Greenpeace has to be the
face of that optimism. And yet
Greenpeace is composed of human
beings that have to deal with their own
grief, rage and sorrow at climate change -
that’s a challenge.
Duncan: And that cognitive
dissonance that you mentioned that
there needs to be a shift in people’s
mindset that there is something we really
need to do to make a fundamental shift in
how we react with the environment.
Barbara: Yes, it’s true, and…change takes
time. Because it’s all about psychology.
Greenpeace needs to mirror a healthy
psychological approach and to be this
tower of force and courage. Like Mike
Hudema dangling from the Second
Narrows Bridge to oppose Kinder
Morgan’s pipeline expansion program. I
myself can’t imagine doing that for what
was, I believe, two days. I think
Greenpeacers have to connect with a
spiritual force deep inside them and that’s
universal. That’s a challenge.
Duncan: There always has been that
spiritual aspect even from the
beginning, particularly in some of the
accounts of the whale expeditions.
Barbara: Yes, yes that’s true. And you
could feel that force in our house. My
parents were always activists – they were
‘married’ to activism as well as to each
other. But this was different, there was so
much intelligence and passion gathered
in our living room, you could feel the spirit
rising there. Of course, part of it was the
music of the time, that was born of angst
towards the Vietnam War and movements
that were beginning; Women’s
Liberation, Gay Liberation, people of
colour were starting to be seen and
heard. Just all of these things percolating
and coming out in the music. My father
was so passionate about music and was
playing records like the Grateful Dead. He
would get unmarked records that had not
yet been played by the reviewer at the
Georgia Straight. We would fill our living
room some nights and there would just
be silence; Dad’s one little pole light on by
the stereo and we would listen to record
after record. There was something about
those moments that lifted our spirits,
lifted them enough to carry on
somehow.
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VMM 60 th ANNIVERSARY 1959-2019
How it all began...
It started with a ship!
In 2019, VMM will proudly celebrate it's 60 th anniversary.
Join us as we take a trip back in time to see how it began!
Safe and sound in it's new home.
A sign of things to come.
An empty beach in Kitsilano -
the future home of the VMM.
Former St. Roch crewmembers
await her arrival at the drydock.
The St. Roch being towed to the dry dock.
Things are starting to take shape.
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Construction of the dry dock begins.
Laying in the foundation of the future VMM.
(notice the lack of highrise buildings on the Vancouver skyline)
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DRAW CLOSES JAN. 27!
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