Storied Greenpeace vessel draws old and young
Barbara Stowe was just 13 years old in 1969 when her parents drew up the founding charter of the Don’t Make a Wave committee, the antinuclear organization that would become Greenpeace.
“I was there. My brother too,” said Stowe. Stowe was in North Vancouver on Sunday, along with other members of the public to tour the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise.
The Arctic Sunrise arrived in Vancouver on Friday to support groups opposing the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion.
Stowe was arrested along with her brother Bob while protesting the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion on Burnaby Mountain in March.
“The Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion is the battle of the day, and it’s one of our global priorities right now,” said Arctic Sunrise captain Joel Stewart, who has captained ships with Greenpeace for 29 years.
Stewart, who lives in the San Juan Islands, says he has seen many oil and fuel spills around the globe.
“An oil spill here in the Salish Sea would be absolutely catastrophic,” he added.
As a steady stream of people lined up on the North Shore dock to tour the ship, which was famously seized by the Russian government after activists protested Arctic drilling in 2013, Stewart reflected on the importance of protecting B.C.’s waters.
“Greenpeace started here. This is our birthplace. We need to preserve the Salish Sea and Vancouver Harbour and reconnect the people of Vancouver, who spawned such a great international movement, with their roots,” he said.
“Greenpeace grew from the kitchen and the living room of the Stowe household into an international organization and movement. I would like to see Canada become a leader in the climatechange battle.”
Longtime Greenpeace supporters Muriel and Neil Gibb came to tour the ship and offer thanks to everyone involved in the organization. The retired couple recently downsized and donated a large portion of the proceeds from the sale of their home to Greenpeace and other environmental organizations.
“Greenpeace has been a beacon of light to the world. Forty years ago corporate interests seemed to be dominating the world, and I knew we couldn’t carry on like that.”
The couple said their two adult children weren’t thrilled that they chose to give such a large portion of their money away.
“We helped them a bit too,” said Neil, 77, “but the greatest gift of my life has been to be able to give the money away to help others.”
Stowe was thrilled to see the families lining up to tour the ship, and to meet the Gibbses and hear their story.
Stowe said her parents were inspired to start the direct-action group that became Greenpeace when they heard that the U.S. government was planning nuclear tests in the national wildlife refuge on the island of Amchitka, in Alaska.
“To raise money to underwrite that first voyage they put on a folk concert with Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Phil Oakes and Chilliwack,” said Stowe.
The concert at the Pacific Coliseum almost didn’t happen: on the day of the concert, prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau brought in the War Measures Act.
“We thought the concert would be cancelled, but somehow the concert was allowed to go ahead.”
The group raised enough funds to charter a boat they dubbed Greenpeace 1.
On Sept. 15, 1971, the inaugural Greenpeace expedition left False Creek in Vancouver to take protesters to the nuclear testing area.