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At the height of the Great Depression, two Inuit fox trappers had the tall ship North Star built to carry their winters' catch of furs to markets in Tuktoyaktuk, Inuvik, and Aklavik. More than one hundred similar ships were built but North Star was the largest, and it remained afloat the longest.
During the Cold War the Canadian Federal government asked North Star's captain to fill his ship with volunteers and sail to a remote island four hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, holding it to assert Canadian Arctic sovereignty. Its captain was awarded a special medal by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
North Star was used to re-assert Canadian Arctic sovereignty twenty years later while tasked with surveying the controversial B.C./Alaska boundary. Under her second owner the ship was chartered by Dome Petroleum and became one of the first, if not the first, private vessel used for surveying the Beaufort Sea for oil and gas deposits.
North Star was subsequently used for sail-training with Innu for the purpose of readying them for working in the oil and gas industry in the Arctic. One of her more memorable charters was by a group of scientists from Cambridge University who went in search of mermaids in the North Pacific.
R. Bruce Macdonald and his wife purchased the ship in 1996 and raised four children aboard, logged thousands of miles in the Pacific Northwest and entered her into numerous classic boat and tall ship festivals. North Star was named the Canadian International Good Will Ambassador in her last entry in a tall ship festival.
"Wherever we sail," Macdonald says, "it seems that someone will knock on the boat and share their memories of their time aboard the ship, usually in the Arctic." Such stories became the impetus for R. Bruce Macdonald's North Star of Herschel Island: Last Canadian Arctic Fur Trading Ship ($46.95, $36.95).
During his research, Macdonald also traveled to the High Arctic and stayed with Inuit elders who shared their memories and their personal photo albums related to the ship. There are over 120 photos in the book, most never previously published.
After a book launch in the office of the M.P. for the Western Arctic in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Macdonald raised enough money via on-line crowd funding to travel twice across western Canada, presenting slide shows to promote the ship in book stores and museums.
Fittingly, Macdonald visited the Vancouver Maritime Museum, now the home of the RCMP's St. Roch which was in the Arctic with North Star. The St. Roch's Captain, Henry Larson was good friends with North Star's captain.
"We have moved the ship to Heritage Harbour Marina at the Vancouver Maritime Museum," says Macdonald, "where at high tide North Star and her old Beaufort Sea friend, St. Roch, can see one another."
Farley Mowatt gave Macdonald's book high praise: " A helluva great book about a helluva great ship!"
R. Bruce Macdonald is the former long-term contributing editor and columnist for Sailing Canada magazine. He has published two hundred articles in dozens of magazines and journals including Cottage Life, Pacific Yachting, Canadian Yachting, Vegetarian Times, Ocean Navigator and Canadian Living. He also contributed research for the PORTS Cruising Guides. Other Canadian authors who have written about North Star include Pierre Berton, Gordon Pinsent and Farley Mowat.
BOOKS:
North Star of Herschel Island: Last Canadian Arctic Fur Trading Ship (FriesenPress, 2012) hardcover $46.95 978-1-4602-0558-7
pb $36.95 978-1-4602-0557-0
Sisters of the Ice: The True Story of How St. Roch and North Star of Herschel Island Protected Canadian Arctic Sovereignty (Lost Moose/Harbour Publishing, 2021) $19.95 978-1-55017-928-6
Never say P*g: The Book of Sailor’s Superstitions (Harbour, 2022) $22.95 9781550179798
[BCBW 2022]
+++
Sisters of the Ice: The True Story of How St. Roch and North Star of Herschel Island Protected Canadian Arctic Sovereignty by R. Bruce Macdonald (Lost Moose/Harbour Publishing $19.95)
Review by by Graham Chandler
Quick: what was the name of the first ship to transit Canada’s Northwest Passage? If you said St. Roch, you’d be wrong. It was Gjøa, in 1908. Thirty-two years later, St. Roch did indeed accomplish the feat but she was the first in the opposite direction—west to east—and it wasn’t just to claim a first. It was under a top-secret order from Ottawa to demonstrate and protect Canadian Arctic sovereignty after foreign vessels and Nazi U-boats had been reported in these icy waters early in WW2.
It’s sovereignty that this well-researched and-written book is all about, packed with details, characters, history and Arctic episodes little-known to most Canadians. And who better to pull off the research and writing than R. Bruce Macdonald. An accomplished historian, writer, sailor and artist with more than 100,000 nautical miles under his belt, he has owned and lived aboard St. Roch’s sister ship North Star of Herschel Island for the past 25 years.
The two legendary ships are the stars of Sisters of the Ice: The True Story of How St.Roch and North Star of Herschel Island Protected Canadian Arctic Sovereignty.
Who knew St. Roch had a sister? She may not be a true sibling but she certainly shares the DNA. Although designed with the Arctic in mind, St. Roch had revealed some shortcomings during her May 1928 sea trials in Vancouver’s English Bay. Underpowered, rig too lofty, went some reports. But one criticism wasn’t really legitimate: a rolling tendency caused by her too-rounded hull. That rounding was intentional; to prevent crushing in winter ice. St. Roch’s pros and cons like these were later addressed in the new design envisaged for North Star by acclaimed trapper and Inuit leader Fred Carpenter and his trapping partner Fred Wolki.
But St. Roch emerges a hero. “Too often when St. Roch is discussed these days there seems to be a tendency to dwell upon all of her firsts,” writes Macdonald. “All these records are true and all are impressive, yet not what she was famous for. What she was best known for was the statement that the Canadian government made with her, a sure sign that the government was taking their ownership of the Canadian Arctic islands and ocean seriously.”
St. Roch was more than an RCMP boat: issuing licenses, taking censuses, delivering medicines and emergency needs as well as maintaining law and order over several thousand square kilometres.
All of these roles play a part in demonstrating sovereignty. Just planting a flag and then sailing away is not recognized as establishing sovereignty over a piece of land; there must be occupation and administration.
Younger sister North Star of Herschel Island played an important role too. Built in San Francisco in 1935, the purpose-built northern ice vessel—dream of the two Freds—was to transport the massive volume of furs harvested from Banks Island as well as taking care of Fred Carpenter’s fellow Banks Islanders. She sailed to Nome on the deck of the Patterson where she met her senior sister St. Roch for the first time.
Early chapters set the stage for the work of the two siblings with useful historical background, starting with the whaling fleets of the late 1800s. Up to 15 international, mostly American ships would arrive in the Western Arctic in late August to harvest bowhead whales for their blubber oil. The whalers overwintered on Herschel Island, about five kilometres off the Yukon coast. There, they’d socialize with the local Inuvialuit and trade western goods like guns, pots and hatchets for a steady supply of caribou meat.
Unfortunately, it introduced the locals to alcohol as well as fatal diseases like tuberculosis and smallpox.
The Inuvialuit and Inuit became indispensable interpreters and guides for ships’ crews. In 1903, the North-West Mounted Police set up a detachment to bring order to the island.
When the invention of kerosene collapsed whale oil demand, whalers started harvesting only the oil-rich heads and baleen of the animal, leaving entire carcasses for scavengers. White foxes quickly discovered the free meals, leading to a boom in their population. Two new fashion trends emerged: first, baleen for corsets, then in 1912, white fox-fur stoles, hats and mufflers.
After completing her officially-ordered west-to-east crossing of the passage, St. Roch didn’t return westward until July 1944 following an extensive refit in Halifax. Braving a fierce storm and dangerous ice, she set a new milestone: first vessel to complete a two-way passage crossing. She finished her Arctic sovereignty work on August 29, 1948 when she sailed out of the Arctic forever.
North Star of Herschel Island continued her Arctic activities, notably her annual round trips between Sachs Harbour on Banks Island and Aklavik with rich loads of fur and supplies with her captain Fred Carpenter. Her crowning contribution to Canadian sovereignty came during the Cold War when in 1951 Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent officially asked Carpenter to establish a permanent Canadian presence on Banks Island “for Queen and country.” It made North Star of Herschel Island a “living symbol of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty,” writes Macdonald.
Bought by Swedish trapper Sven Johansson soon afterwards, Macdonald kept his eye on her—until he became the owner 25 years ago.
With plentiful sidebars, old photographs and full source material listing, Macdonald’s book will appeal to historians, Arctic lore enthusiasts and lovers of rollicking true adventure stories.
9781550179286
Graham Chandler is a freelance writer who frequently writes for northern magazines. He holds a PhD in Archeology.
BCBW 2021
+++
During the Cold War the Canadian Federal government asked North Star's captain to fill his ship with volunteers and sail to a remote island four hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, holding it to assert Canadian Arctic sovereignty. Its captain was awarded a special medal by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
North Star was used to re-assert Canadian Arctic sovereignty twenty years later while tasked with surveying the controversial B.C./Alaska boundary. Under her second owner the ship was chartered by Dome Petroleum and became one of the first, if not the first, private vessel used for surveying the Beaufort Sea for oil and gas deposits.
North Star was subsequently used for sail-training with Innu for the purpose of readying them for working in the oil and gas industry in the Arctic. One of her more memorable charters was by a group of scientists from Cambridge University who went in search of mermaids in the North Pacific.
R. Bruce Macdonald and his wife purchased the ship in 1996 and raised four children aboard, logged thousands of miles in the Pacific Northwest and entered her into numerous classic boat and tall ship festivals. North Star was named the Canadian International Good Will Ambassador in her last entry in a tall ship festival.
"Wherever we sail," Macdonald says, "it seems that someone will knock on the boat and share their memories of their time aboard the ship, usually in the Arctic." Such stories became the impetus for R. Bruce Macdonald's North Star of Herschel Island: Last Canadian Arctic Fur Trading Ship ($46.95, $36.95).
During his research, Macdonald also traveled to the High Arctic and stayed with Inuit elders who shared their memories and their personal photo albums related to the ship. There are over 120 photos in the book, most never previously published.
After a book launch in the office of the M.P. for the Western Arctic in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Macdonald raised enough money via on-line crowd funding to travel twice across western Canada, presenting slide shows to promote the ship in book stores and museums.
Fittingly, Macdonald visited the Vancouver Maritime Museum, now the home of the RCMP's St. Roch which was in the Arctic with North Star. The St. Roch's Captain, Henry Larson was good friends with North Star's captain.
"We have moved the ship to Heritage Harbour Marina at the Vancouver Maritime Museum," says Macdonald, "where at high tide North Star and her old Beaufort Sea friend, St. Roch, can see one another."
Farley Mowatt gave Macdonald's book high praise: " A helluva great book about a helluva great ship!"
R. Bruce Macdonald is the former long-term contributing editor and columnist for Sailing Canada magazine. He has published two hundred articles in dozens of magazines and journals including Cottage Life, Pacific Yachting, Canadian Yachting, Vegetarian Times, Ocean Navigator and Canadian Living. He also contributed research for the PORTS Cruising Guides. Other Canadian authors who have written about North Star include Pierre Berton, Gordon Pinsent and Farley Mowat.
BOOKS:
North Star of Herschel Island: Last Canadian Arctic Fur Trading Ship (FriesenPress, 2012) hardcover $46.95 978-1-4602-0558-7
pb $36.95 978-1-4602-0557-0
Sisters of the Ice: The True Story of How St. Roch and North Star of Herschel Island Protected Canadian Arctic Sovereignty (Lost Moose/Harbour Publishing, 2021) $19.95 978-1-55017-928-6
Never say P*g: The Book of Sailor’s Superstitions (Harbour, 2022) $22.95 9781550179798
[BCBW 2022]
+++
Sisters of the Ice: The True Story of How St. Roch and North Star of Herschel Island Protected Canadian Arctic Sovereignty by R. Bruce Macdonald (Lost Moose/Harbour Publishing $19.95)
Review by by Graham Chandler
Quick: what was the name of the first ship to transit Canada’s Northwest Passage? If you said St. Roch, you’d be wrong. It was Gjøa, in 1908. Thirty-two years later, St. Roch did indeed accomplish the feat but she was the first in the opposite direction—west to east—and it wasn’t just to claim a first. It was under a top-secret order from Ottawa to demonstrate and protect Canadian Arctic sovereignty after foreign vessels and Nazi U-boats had been reported in these icy waters early in WW2.
It’s sovereignty that this well-researched and-written book is all about, packed with details, characters, history and Arctic episodes little-known to most Canadians. And who better to pull off the research and writing than R. Bruce Macdonald. An accomplished historian, writer, sailor and artist with more than 100,000 nautical miles under his belt, he has owned and lived aboard St. Roch’s sister ship North Star of Herschel Island for the past 25 years.
The two legendary ships are the stars of Sisters of the Ice: The True Story of How St.Roch and North Star of Herschel Island Protected Canadian Arctic Sovereignty.
Who knew St. Roch had a sister? She may not be a true sibling but she certainly shares the DNA. Although designed with the Arctic in mind, St. Roch had revealed some shortcomings during her May 1928 sea trials in Vancouver’s English Bay. Underpowered, rig too lofty, went some reports. But one criticism wasn’t really legitimate: a rolling tendency caused by her too-rounded hull. That rounding was intentional; to prevent crushing in winter ice. St. Roch’s pros and cons like these were later addressed in the new design envisaged for North Star by acclaimed trapper and Inuit leader Fred Carpenter and his trapping partner Fred Wolki.
But St. Roch emerges a hero. “Too often when St. Roch is discussed these days there seems to be a tendency to dwell upon all of her firsts,” writes Macdonald. “All these records are true and all are impressive, yet not what she was famous for. What she was best known for was the statement that the Canadian government made with her, a sure sign that the government was taking their ownership of the Canadian Arctic islands and ocean seriously.”
St. Roch was more than an RCMP boat: issuing licenses, taking censuses, delivering medicines and emergency needs as well as maintaining law and order over several thousand square kilometres.
All of these roles play a part in demonstrating sovereignty. Just planting a flag and then sailing away is not recognized as establishing sovereignty over a piece of land; there must be occupation and administration.
Younger sister North Star of Herschel Island played an important role too. Built in San Francisco in 1935, the purpose-built northern ice vessel—dream of the two Freds—was to transport the massive volume of furs harvested from Banks Island as well as taking care of Fred Carpenter’s fellow Banks Islanders. She sailed to Nome on the deck of the Patterson where she met her senior sister St. Roch for the first time.
Early chapters set the stage for the work of the two siblings with useful historical background, starting with the whaling fleets of the late 1800s. Up to 15 international, mostly American ships would arrive in the Western Arctic in late August to harvest bowhead whales for their blubber oil. The whalers overwintered on Herschel Island, about five kilometres off the Yukon coast. There, they’d socialize with the local Inuvialuit and trade western goods like guns, pots and hatchets for a steady supply of caribou meat.
Unfortunately, it introduced the locals to alcohol as well as fatal diseases like tuberculosis and smallpox.
The Inuvialuit and Inuit became indispensable interpreters and guides for ships’ crews. In 1903, the North-West Mounted Police set up a detachment to bring order to the island.
When the invention of kerosene collapsed whale oil demand, whalers started harvesting only the oil-rich heads and baleen of the animal, leaving entire carcasses for scavengers. White foxes quickly discovered the free meals, leading to a boom in their population. Two new fashion trends emerged: first, baleen for corsets, then in 1912, white fox-fur stoles, hats and mufflers.
After completing her officially-ordered west-to-east crossing of the passage, St. Roch didn’t return westward until July 1944 following an extensive refit in Halifax. Braving a fierce storm and dangerous ice, she set a new milestone: first vessel to complete a two-way passage crossing. She finished her Arctic sovereignty work on August 29, 1948 when she sailed out of the Arctic forever.
North Star of Herschel Island continued her Arctic activities, notably her annual round trips between Sachs Harbour on Banks Island and Aklavik with rich loads of fur and supplies with her captain Fred Carpenter. Her crowning contribution to Canadian sovereignty came during the Cold War when in 1951 Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent officially asked Carpenter to establish a permanent Canadian presence on Banks Island “for Queen and country.” It made North Star of Herschel Island a “living symbol of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty,” writes Macdonald.
Bought by Swedish trapper Sven Johansson soon afterwards, Macdonald kept his eye on her—until he became the owner 25 years ago.
With plentiful sidebars, old photographs and full source material listing, Macdonald’s book will appeal to historians, Arctic lore enthusiasts and lovers of rollicking true adventure stories.
9781550179286
Graham Chandler is a freelance writer who frequently writes for northern magazines. He holds a PhD in Archeology.
BCBW 2021
+++
