Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, Samoset . . . and Beer?

I posted this two years ago, and was recently asked (OK, one person mentioned) that I run it again. The original came from a posting by Delancyplace.com. In his book A Voyage Long and Strange, Tony Horwitz muses on the discovery of America after hearing from a Plymouth Rock tour guide named Claire that the most common question from tourists was why the date etched on the rock was 1620 instead of 1492: " 'People think Columbus dropped off the Pilgrims and sailed home.' Claire had to patiently explain that Columbus's landing and the Pilgrims' arrival occurred a thousand miles and 128 years apart. ... "By the time the first English settled, other Europeans had already reached half of the forty-eight states that today make up the continental United States. One of the earliest arrivals was Giovanni da Verrazzano, who toured the Eastern Seaboard in 1524, almost a full century before the Pilgrims arrived. ... Even less remembered are the Portuguese pilots who steered Spanish ships along both coasts of the continent in the sixteenth century, probing upriver to Bangor Maine and all the way to Oregon. ... In 1542 Spanish conquistadors completed a reconnaissance of the continent's interior: scaling the Appalachians, rafting the Mississippi, peering down the Grand Canyon and galloping as far inland as central Kansas. ... "The Spanish didn't just explore: they settled from the Rio Grande to the Atlantic. Upon founding St. Augustine, the first European city on U.S. soil, the Spanish gave thanks and dined with Indians - fifty-six years before the Pilgrim Thanksgiving at Plymouth. ... Plymouth, it turned out, wasn't even the first English colony in New England. That distinction belonged to Fort St. George in Popham, Maine. Nor were the Pilgrims the first to settle Massachusetts. In 1602 a band of English built a fort on the island of Cuttyhunk. They came not for religious freedom but to get rich from digging sassafras, a commodity prized in Europe as a cure for the clap. ... "The Pilgrims and later the Americans who pushed west from the Atlantic didn't pioneer a virgin wilderness. They occupied a land long since transformed by European contact. ... Samoset, the first Indian the Pilgrims met at Plymouth, greeted the settlers in English. The first thing he asked for was beer." A Happy Thanksgiving to All

Mr. President Comes To Ottawa, A Remembering

 

It was Tuesday, May 16, 1961, a day many of us had been working towards for weeks. As was the practice those days, the Government Hospitality Committee was responsible for all VIP visits and the Canadian Army's Directorate of Public Relations provided the technical media coordination.

Earlier in the month three of us, plus the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, met with the White House advance party to plan President Kennedy's two day state visit to Canada, his first presidential visit to a foreign country. The ever-cigar-smoking Pierre Salinger, JFK's press secretary, was there but soon turned over media responsibility to his deputy.

Media arrangements for covering VIP visits to Canada were generally somewhat casual. The working press trusted us to get them to where they needed to be, providing them with necessary background materials, and when necessary, arranging pool coverage of more intimate or somewhat restricted events. RCMP presence was more to keep amateurs away from the working press than to "police" the media. It was all quite calm and refined. The arrival of the White House Press Corps came as a shock!

The presidential arrival was to take place at Ottawa's Royal Canadian Air Force Station Uplands. We had anticipated two or three photographers' locations to catch JFK and Jacqueline arriving on Canadian soil. Not good enough, said the White House press, we need a camera truck at each end of the runway. Why? Well, you never know if Air Force One will crash and we need that picture.

And that same sort of aggressive approach continued on for most of the two days, diminishing somewhat as they learned to trust what we were doing, and that we were doing it for them. It seemed as though their experience was, for the most part, confrontational rather than collaborative.

The arrival went as planned, if not two hours late. A state visit, Governor General Georges Vanier and Madame Vanier first greeted the American couple. Then Prime Minister George Diefenbaker and Mrs. Diefenbaker.

The party then moved inside the RCAF hanger for the official welcoming speeches, a moment when JFK won the hearts of all Canada when, following the Prime Minister's greeting first in English and then French, President Kennedy responded.

He explained that he had planned to reply in English and then ask his wife to respond in French, but after hearing the prime minister's fractured French, he had no hesitation in using his own French-speaking skill! A politician from the Manitoba prairies, the Prime Minister's French was always painful and the butt of much late night Canadian humor.

And when on the final day of the visit, addressing the Canadian Parliament, President Kennedy, uttered his famous aphorism, "Geography has made us neighbours; history has made us friends," 

Canada swooned!

Before he retired his commission, the writer of "Aft Deck Musings . . . ", was the news editor for the Canadian Army's Directorate of Public Relations and responsible for national media coordination of VIP visits.

Saint Patrick's Day 1943

On the North Atlantic, 1943, a selection from the diary of the British Merchant Navy's only sea-going chaplain at that time, a new position and rank designated by the Admiralty as "Fleet Padre." In his three years at sea he served aboard 26 ships.

"Forty ships of various types stretched across thre Nort Atlantic in eleven short columns, moving eastward, bound for Liverpool from Halifax. A small escort, one destroyer and two corvettes, is doing its best to maintain patrol ahead and to the flanks. The area these little craft must cover is great. The corvettes have not much speed, and the weather is against them.

"As night falls the moon, near full, comes through the clouds to shine brightly on the whitecaps. It is just this sort of night when it is most difficult to spot the wake of a submarine or its bow-wave as it moves to the surface. Sudenly the peculiar metalic "pung" of an underwater explosion is heard. The alarm bell rings. We are out on deck to see what is happening. Two columns to starboard a ship has burst into flames amidship. A corvette hurries to the stricken ship which is now rapidly dropping astern.

"A few hours later three more explosions are heard, followed by depth charges. Two more ships in the outside starboard colum have been hit, and one torpedo has streaked right across the convoy to pick off a ship in the extreme port column. One ship goes down in a matter of minutes, leaving nothing but a cluster of bobbing red lights on the surface where a few of her  crew have got away and are floating with the lights on their Mae Wests to guide any possible rescuers. But with this sea and so small an escort there is little chance of rescue.

"Another lull for a few hours follows. We still keep on our Mae Wests, our all-weather suits, and fire-proof hoods in their cases. (The tanker I was on, the NICANIA, was carrying several thousand tons of 100-high octane at the time.) The crew stands in groups on the after deck. I make my way down to the Engine Room and have a few words with the Chief and the Second; all strained white faces, for in a bad hit there is little chance of escape for them and things that happen in the Engine and Boiler Rooms can be slow and horrible.

"Suddenly a loud Morse distress signal. An explosion nearby follows. We run out on deck. The ship immediatle ahead of us, another on our starboard beam, and a big whale-factory ship on our port bow have all got it. The first is going down rapidly; the second more slowly. The great whale-factory is blazing furiously forward of her bridge. As we slide past her the glaring heat and spark-laden smoke sweep over us. We can hear the shouts of men trapped in her foc'sle,The greenish glare of the fire lights up the whole vessel. We see the crew silhouetted against the flames working to get two boats forward on the port side lowered. It looks as if the flames are actually licking all around the men. And there is a Mate standing there, his hands in his pockets, calm as if it were a boat drill, giving orders clear and unruffled  - - 'All clear? Lower away. Steady her. Cast off your stern line'. We can hear him distinctly above the noise of the sea and the roar of the fire. It steadies us a bit.

"Daylight brings a lull in the confusion. Gaps arwe closed up and the convoy reforms. We feel that anyway we shall be undisturbed until night falls again. Hardly had I lain down before the bell rings again. Three more ships have been hit. One goes quickly. Another burns steadily as we leave her until, far out on the horizon, we see an explosion and she disappears. The third remains for a long time with just her bow and foremast showing above the surface.

"During the afternoon more escort show up. The topmasts of two destroyers are visible on the horizon. But some of the ships are understandably jittery by this time. Four of them open up with their 4-inch guns, thinking that what they see are periscopes. The destrioyers are not so much endangered as we are, with shells landing all over the place. A small Panamanian tramp joins in the fun. Everytime she fires her stern gun, she puts on an extra five knots, and she comes 'whoofing' up the column in grand style - - a pioneer of jet-propulsion.

"That night we hear what sound like depth charges in the distance. When morning comes, we count up the convoy. Three more are missing. Fifteen have gone in 24 hours, and of four stragglers, we subsequently are told, three are lost. Eighteen out of forty ships and a great company of gallant men is the toll.

"Addenda. Some years ago after the war, I came acrtoss a paperback of the submarine campaign from the German point of view, Wolfgang Frank's 'The Sea Wolves', which included the attack on my convoy.  I got into correspondence with him to help clarify my recollections with his version. Of course we were looking at it from opposite ends of the torpedo. That book was rather shocking then. At the time of the attack we figured that there must have been three submarines that were able to keep just ahead of uus all the time because the torpedoes came in three at a time from the same angle nearly every time. When I got it from the point of view of the submarine commanders, there were thirty submarines around us. So it was surprising that any of us got out of it."

After the war this former Merchant Navy chaplain went on to serve Episcopal parishes in California and Washington State until he retired. He died in 1993 at the age of 92. Today, November 21, would be the Rev'd. Eric W. Jackson, my Dad's, birthday.

A Gem of a "GEM"

They say that the happiest days in a boater's life are when they buy a boat and when they sell a boat. So, if both happen a day apart, does that make the boater doubly happy?

Yes, after having her for 22 years we sold the Lady Mick last month. It was sad to see her go after so many great times and adventures aboard (not to mention the hours and hours of work on her). She was our home for 16 years. Yet. the next day we bought the Gem, a 1932 Stimson Dreamboat, all 26 feet of her are a real classic!

It all happened this way. We had Lady Mick flyers posted up all over, one spot being the notice board at the Wooden Boat Foundation in Port Townsend. We were up there this September for the annual not-to-be-missed Wooden Boat Festival. Parking being tight, June hopped out of the car to see if, hopefully, our flyer was still up. It was, but "you've got to see this other one on the board." I parked and did. It was for Gem. Bitten, we got in touch with her owner, and to make long story short, we made a conditional offer on her.




The buyers of Lady Mick live in Olympia, as do the sellers of Gem, so as we delivered Lady Mick that afternoon in Olympia we took possession of Gem that evening (we had done sea trials and a survey prior).

Gem has a rather unknown history. She was reportedly built in 1932 at the Stimson Boat Works, Seattle. There is the Stimson Marina on the Ballard side of Seattle's Ship Canal, right next to Kovich-Williams, which also built boats. Gem may well have been a work boat, for she had a quarter-berth in the wheel house and galley forward and below. From a scant log book, she was originally gas powered with her present Yanmar 27 hp diesel engine installed early 1980's. Jerry Anderson, from whom we bought her, has done a simply marvelous job of restoring her! Jerry was, and is, a master craftsman.

The galley has now been relocated to the wheelhouse, a marvelous stovetop/heater (Wallas) installed.

Opposite the helm seat is a "first mate's" seat. Aft of the wheelhouse is an open cockpit

What was the galley area now has two single bunks with a head forward.

Admittedly, Gem is a very different vessel for us after the 46' Lady Mick. No longer needing the size for living aboard, we're now looking forward to a smaller, simpler boat just for cruising (not to mention maintaining).

Any suggestions, hints, rumors, scuttlebutt as to Gem's lineage would be much appreciated. In the meanwhile, we're proud to be her current stewards.

If all goes as planned, hopefully you may see Gem next September at the Port Townsend's Wooden Boat Festival, if not before at the Classic Yacht Association's rendezvous at Seattle's Pier 66 next June, if we're invited. For now, Gem enjoys her new covered slip at the Port of Edmonds.

Yes, it was a double happy day!

Galley, starboard side of the wheelhouse. Drawers still have to be made.

Nice drop windows.

A classic.

First mate's side of the wheelhouse.

Side decks a bit narrow.