Going Home 2012

Going Home

In September 2012 our family of Norwegian descent will make a pilgrimage to the place of our father’s birth, the Anholmen peninsula of the small island of Herføl ,one of the islands of the Hvaler chain, or “Wales”. Near a special granite outcrop, known to the family as Anina’s Rock, we will join Norwegian cousins to celebrate the day of Henry Larsen’s birth in 1899. We last gathered with them in 2000 when Herføl’s only road was officially named after him on a sunny day. Led by a brass band, and waving flags, several hundred marched along the route from the ferry dock. Gathering on a grassy expanse near Anina’s rock , we sang the national anthems of Norway and Canada and the Herføl song, laid flowers in our father’s memory, ate waffler, greeted family and met cousins we hadn’t known.

What is special about this years’ pilgrimage ?

70 years ago this fall, an ungainly 104 foot wooden schooner was escorted without fanfare through the antisubmarine net and mines into the harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Under its captain, Norwegian- born Henry Larsen, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Arctic patrol ship, St Roch, had left Vancouver, BC in June 1940 and headed into the western Arctic. That 28 month voyage placed the ship and her crew in the annals not only of Canadian history but also of global maritime history as the first ship to traverse the Northwest Passage from west to east. Forty years had passed since Roald Amundsen set out to make the only prior transit of the fabled passage, a feat that inspired Henry Larsen, who was an orphaned boy, at a time when Norwegians were celebrating not only Amundsen’s success, but Norway’s newly found independence.

Henry had reached school age and been sent by Swedish relatives to Herføl to be raised by close family who made a hard living at sea and farming the rocky shallow soil of the island. “The school subjects which I liked most were history and geography ... I read all the books on geography that I could come across and was attracted by stories about the polar regions. Books by Nansen, Amundsen, Sverdrup and Stefansson were my favorites. Frobisher’s achievements and the fate of Franklin.. also interested me. The more I read, the stronger became my desire to explore the sea and the unknown islands in the North,” he said. Even before he went to sea at the age of 14 with his uncles on the Anna, a vessel much like the Gjøa, the sea was his great love. As a youngster he sailed pilots out to their ships and tourists to various islands. Often when large ships were anchoring in the bay waiting for favorable winds, boys were allowed to visit aboard, climb the masts and rigging and to do chores.

As a boy he served on Norwegian sailing ships to the Americas during the dangerous time of the first world war, and was even shipwrecked off the Carolinas on the General Gordon, his greatest love among the many ships he sailed on. After gaining experience on motor vessels to South Africa and the East Indies, he entered the navigation school in Oslo and graduated with a master’s certificate. Henry Larsen completed his required stint in the Norwegian navy, served as a fourth then third officer on modern steamers of the Fred Olsen Shipping Line to the harbours of the west coast, Pacific and Japan. While on the Theodore Roosevelt in 1922 he met Amundsen who was arranging passage home for his pilot Oscar Omdahl after their attempt to fly over the pole had failed. The long conversations he had with Omdahl again aroused his interest in the Arctic. The following year he read in the newspaper that a Danish trader, Christian Klengenberg who had been sailing into the Arctic since 1905, was in Seattle and looking for a navigator Although he could look forward to a promising career within the Fred Olsen line, Larsen recognized this was his opportunity to navigate a ship in the Arctic Ocean and resigned his position of 3^rd mate.

Now he gained experience navigating in the ice, over-wintering a ship, hunting for seals and walrus, handling dog teams, trapping, living among the Inuit, and supporting himself off the land. He came to realize that life in the Arctic suited him, but the days of Arctic trading ships were almost over and life at sea was also important to him. Fortunately he learned from RCMP officers at Herschel Island that the force intended to build a ship to serve as a floating police detachment and supply ship. He would have to become a naturalized Canadian citizen and then apply to join the RCMP. So four years later, as a 28 year old, he found himself on the trial voyage as an ordinary crew member of the vessel christened St Roch .The technical advisor for the ship was appointed Captain. Once in Arctic waters however, Larsen proved how capable he was and although the most junior member of the force, he was designated skipper and navigator. A sergeant was brought on board to be in charge when the ship was anchored or frozen in.

The St Roch was built of Douglas fir - 104 feet three inches long, with a beam of 24 feet 9 inches and a draft of 13 feet when fully loaded. She could sail in shallow water. Her rounded hull could resist the crushing pressure of the ice, but the shape caused her to “buck and heave like a bronco” when at sea. The outer hull was sheathed in Australian Ironbark. She had a 6 cylinder 135 HP diesel engine, no more powerful than that of a modern car. There were no batteries for lighting until 1940. Before that kerosene or gasoline lamps were used. The crew , of usually of 7 to 9 men, were selected as for any other police detachment, and few had prior experience on a ship. They sailed without the benefit of modern navigational aids; no sonar, satellite systems or radar, weather reports or ice reconnaissance, coast guard patrols or search and rescue. Radio contact was irregular and extended only 200 miles so they relied on a relay system of messages. They sailed mostly through uncharted waters, using navigation methods dating back hundreds of years. Only in later years did they have a gyro compass, and even that was unreliable at the time. Larsen trained them well.

Henry Larsen’s assignment on the St Roch was not to be an explorer. One of the purposes of the St Roch was to demonstrate Canada’s sovereignty over the Canadian Arctic; primarily the task was governance. The men on the St Roch had a heavy task load: they carried supplies to land detachments, transported natives, priests and families, or the sick to hospital and children to school, carried mail, monitored game, conducted census reports, administered federal regulations, checked living conditions of Inuit communities, occasionally investigated murders or transported prisoners, acted as judges, commissioners of oaths, collected various taxes, issued licences. In other words they carried out the functions of all the other government departments in the name of Canadian sovereignty. To do so, they raised and trained their sled dogs, and hunted for fish, bear and seals to supply fresh meat for their dogs and themselves, and sometimes for local Inuit. They collected the water they required from nearby lakes in the form of large ice blocks or from freshwater pools on sea ice. In winter they dressed and traveled in native fashion, usually hiring a local man as interpreter or guide. These were the functions of the RCMP in the Arctic up until the late 1950's.

Henry Larsen sailed the St Roch in Arctic waters overwintering 11 times, from 1928 until1948 when the ship was retired from Arctic service. The longest stretch was more than four years. For economic and other restraints her activities were limited to the western Arctic. In the 1930's the St Roch operated extensively along the coast of the western Arctic from Herschel Island into the Coronation Gulf. From 1935-38 she operated out of Cambridge Bay.

Larsen made several requests, one as early as 1928, to proceed through the North West passage during years when ice conditions appeared conducive to success, but it wasn’t until World War II that the “Great Assignment” was ordered. In April 1940 they were to be part of a secret war-time mission - to head through the NW Passage into the eastern Arctic as part of a Canadian force to secure the cryolite mines of Greenland. Cryolite was necessary for the production of aluminum needed for the allied war effort and Denmark was under Nazi occupation. However the Americans intervened and secured the mines for their own use and that mission was cancelled in May, over a month before the St Roch was ready to sail. Historian Sheila Grant of Trent University and others traced this aspect of story which is told in the film Mission Northwest Passage. Then why did the St Roch still set out for the eastern Arctic in June ? RCMP and Hudson’s Bay Company posts on the eastern Arctic islands had closed; they couldn’t be supplied during the war. Now American military presence in the eastern Canadian Arctic was increasing without Canadian oversight. St Roch’s ongoing assignment was to maintain the Canadian governance over her Arctic.

The ice conditions of 1940-42 were the worst Larsen ever experienced. His intended route was through the uncharted Prince of Wales Strait. The first winter, 1940, they were frozen in at Walker Bay on Victoria Island. The strait was still ice packed in summer 1941, and hoping to still get out that year, Larsen decided to follow Amundsen’s route in waters sometimes as shallow as two fathoms and where their compass spun uselessly. Again they met solid ice pushing towards them east of King William Island and luckily ended up in early September 1941 in Pasley Bay and froze in. By August 1942 their supplies were low and there was no game in the area. The ice was bad, but they had to chance their escape though Bellot Strait where ice squeezed them from east and west. Three times they prepared to abandon ship. My father said that if they hadn’t got through they would have been there yet. This is the voyage that Henry Asbjørn Larsen is best known for.

What is less often mentioned is that two years later, Larsen took the St Roch westward through the previously unconquered more northerly deep water route, traveling through Lancaster and Melville Sounds, descending Prince of Wales Strait into Amundsen Gulf and Bering Strait, reaching Vancouver in 86 days. This is the route that Larsen referred to as the “true Northwest Passage”. Canadian resources had already been overtaxed by the demands of the war. Only 3 regular RCMP members were available as crew. Larsen himself had to assemble the rest; it include two elderly men, and a boy of 16. They were to prepare for a voyage of possibly two years. It was a secret undertaking, but difficult to outfit for. Larsen described their readiness for the task: “Never before had anyone prepared so badly for an Arctic voyage.” The least problem was that their canned meat supply was so salty that even the dogs wouldn’t eat it.

This voyage is more clearly documented as one to uphold Canada’s claim to this section of the Arctic. Could the closed detachments of the Arctic islands be re-opened and supplied from the west ? Could additional detachments be established ? Records of their voyage and various ordinances were left in cairns marking their way.

Although taking only 86 days, the voyage was not without serious difficulty. Heavy Arctic blue ice, thick fog and sleet obscured the entrance to Prince of Wales Strait. Once they were in familiar waters they couldn’t delay. From Holman Island on it looked as if they would spend a winter in the Arctic. A message from Point Barrow reported no ship could get out through the worst ice in years. Henry Larsen has been described as the “most out standing of Arctic navigators who could read the ice like no other”. Reaching Herschel Island, a slight easterly wind made its appearance. He wrote “Just what I needed, and after all these years I knew exactly what it would do along this coast in the way of loosening the ice pack, leaving a narrow lead along the shore. I prayed for the light breeze to hold until we got around Point Barrow”.

Buried in the little known files in the Canadian National Archives are documents attesting to Henry Larsen’s skills as a navigator. One is the 1948 report by a Canadian naval observer who joined the St Roch, to reassess the accuracy Larsen’s findings and routes using then modern navigation aids and to evaluate the suitability of various anchorages in the western Arctic for military purposes. That same report referred to the high regard with which he was held by the people of the area.

In those files is also evidence that Larsen had long laid the groundwork for a possible opportunity to take his ship through Amundsen’s Northwest Passage route. The route is shallow, and Amundsen’s little Gjøa with a loaded draft of 10 feet 5 inches, had run aground. The loaded draft of St Roch was 12 ½ to 13 feet . In 1937, when headquartering in Cambridge Bay Larsen had made exploratory sled treks along Queen Maud Gulf out to Rae Strait, returning via Geographical and Lind Islands and the Victoria Island coast. Trip reports show that on this and other patrols he took depth soundings through seal holes en route. In 1954 the northerly route was subsequently followed by the Canadian naval icebreaker Labrador. Then in 1957 the American Coast Guard tenders Storis, Bramble and Spar along with the Labrador refined Larsen’s southerly charts for military use during the cold war. The St Roch eventually became the first ship to circumnavigate North America when it traveled through the Panama (Vancouver to Halifax 1949), and Halifax to Vancouver (1954)

In 1949 Larsen was appointed Commanding Officer of RCMP “G” Division which then included NWT, Yukon, what is now Nunivut, the northern regions of Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, over half of Canada .His goal was the better selection and training of men serving at Arctic RCMP detachments and he did everything in his power to improve the lot of the Inuit.

Henry Larsen and the crews on the two Northwest Passage voyages were awarded the coveted Polar Medal and later he received the bar as well as the Pacific and Atlantic Stars and the 1939-44 War medal. He

was appointed a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society (1944); awarded the First Massey Medal of the Canadian Geographic Society ;he was elected a member of the Explorer’s Club, and received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Waterloo Lutheran University. On retiring in 1961 he expressed his gratitude to his adopted country, Canada, and the honor he felt in having come as an unknown Norwegian seaman , leaving the RCMP as a Superintendent, and having had the duty assigned to him of carrying the Canadian Blue Ensign both ways through the Northwest passage for the first time in history. But he also expressed his deep gratitude to his native Norway, which had given him ideals, dreams and ambition.

After his death in 1963, Larsen Sound at the juncture of Franklin Strait and McClintock Channel, where the St Roch had been caught and helplessly drifted in the pack ice for 20 days, was named in his honour.

This is the man whose life his Canadian and Norwegian family will be celebrating.