(Fog horns sound. Man: "Well, what do you say we all break open a bottle of cold duck?" Man 2: "That's a good idea." Man 3: "Wow." Sea gulls call.)
CURWOOD: On September 15, 1971, 12 activists celebrated as their boat slipped out of Vancouver Harbor on an unseasonably warm fall day. The crew nicknamed the boat the Greenpeace to note the dual ecological and antiwar nature of their mission. On the second day, the Greenpeace broke down.
(Mechanical boat sounds)
CURWOOD: Mechanical problems were only the start. As Ben Metcalf noted in his audio journal, the rough autumn seas of the North Pacific took a toll on the unseasoned crew.
METCALF: The weather, although John Cormack described it in his log as "a calm chop," it is really rolling. The Greenpeace is pitching and rolling. Some of the boys are still pretty sick.
(Howling winds)
CURWOOD: A storm sent the Greenpeace scurrying for cover at Acutan, an island partway up the Aleutian chain. Crew member Bob Hunter says the unplanned landfall was a pivotal event for the group. The crew stumbled upon an abandoned whaling station.
HUNTER: It was like a scene from
The Killing Fields, only it was, these bones were all giant bones, like a race of giants had been slaughtered there. You know, you had the feeling that you'd come too late, and it was sort of like after an apocalypse. It was actually very instrumental in getting us very turned onto the idea, later on, of saving the whales.
CURWOOD: The encounter at Acutan had another fateful resonance as well. The island is part of Alaska. The Greenpeace crew was Canadian, and they had landed on American soil without clearing customs. As Ben Metcalf recorded, they were boarded by sailors from the US Coast Guard cutter, Confidence.
(Voice on bullhorn: "District Director of Customs asked the Coast Guard to notify Master of Phyllis Cormack that he has incurred penalty within, with US Customs failure to report on the Tariff Act of 1930...")
CURWOOD: As the Coast Guard commander charged the captain of the Greenpeace with customs violations, the Coast Guard crew slipped the protesters a note.
(Man 1: "Wow!" Man 2: "Read it out, to that mike. Listen, you guys." Man 1: " 'Due to the situation we are in, we the crew of the Confidence feel that what you are doing is for the good of all mankind. If our hands weren't tied by these military bonds, we would be in the same position you are in if it were at all possible. Good luck. We are behind you 100%.' Jesus." Man 3: "Hey, that's really great!" Applause follows.)
CURWOOD: Greenpeace crew member Patrick Moore remembers the show of support as an important victory.
MOORE: We cheered a lot, but of course the first reaction by Ben Metcalf and the other people who were in charge of our communications and media side was to get on the radio telephone and let the world know that this had happened.
CURWOOD: Soon after their run-in with the Coast Guard, the Greenpeace crew received word that the US had delayed the test. As winter approached, the already rough waters of the North Pacific would get worse. As Ben Metcalf recalled in his documentary, supplies and money were also running out.
METCALF: They were pulling the bomb away from us and smothering us in red tape. And we were suddenly conscious of sailing on the far edge of the ridiculous. The only possible way for us to carry out our mission would be to sit off the 3-mile limit of Amchitka in our leaky loser of a boat for an indefinite period, through those 100-mile-an-hour winds. In other words, no way.
CURWOOD: The beleaguered crew voted to return home to Vancouver. But the trip and the publicity it generated set the tone for future campaigns. In fact, the story of Greenpeace, from sailing ships into nuclear test sites, to confronting whaling vessels on the high seas, to members chaining themselves to trees and smokestacks, is a lesson in direct action to attract media attention. Twenty-five years later Greenpeace has a $200 million budget, a cadre of lawyers and hundreds of staff in 30 countries. Still, the group's sensational and confrontational tactics are just as controversial as ever. Even among the crew of that original voyage. Crew member Patrick Moore went on to become director of Greenpeace Canada before leaving the organization. Today he consults for the timber industry in British Columbia. He says the environmental group he helped found has lost its focus.
MOORE: A lot of the issues have been dealt with that can be most effectively dealt with by the direct action tactics. I mean, they've stopped dumping nuclear waste in the sea, so you can't go out and fight against that any more. They've basically stopped killing whales. And so, as each of these campaigns is won, the situation becomes more diffuse and you start having to deal with what really are the larger issues of the human species relationship with the environment. Issues like fisheries and forestry and agriculture and urban development.
Living on Earth: Environmental Pioneers Profile # 24: The
