A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North : Terrestrial Sovereignty, 1870–1939
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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository University of Calgary Press University of Calgary Press Open Access Books 2014 A historical and legal study of sovereignty in the Canadian north : terrestrial sovereignty, 1870–1939 Smith, Gordon W. University of Calgary Press "A historical and legal study of sovereignty in the Canadian north : terrestrial sovereignty, 1870–1939", Gordon W. Smith; edited by P. Whitney Lackenbauer. University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta, 2014 http://hdl.handle.net/1880/50251 book http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca A HISTORICAL AND LEGAL STUDY OF SOVEREIGNTY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH: TERRESTRIAL SOVEREIGNTY, 1870–1939 By Gordon W. Smith, Edited by P. Whitney Lackenbauer ISBN 978-1-55238-774-0 THIS BOOK IS AN OPEN ACCESS E-BOOK. 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Acknowledgement: We acknowledge the wording around open access used by Australian publisher, re.press, and thank them for giving us permission to adapt their wording to our policy http://www.re-press.org 16 369 Epilogue: Henry Larsen, t he S t. Roch, and t he Nort hwest Passage V oyage of 1940–42 The voyage of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) vesselSt. Roch through the Northwest Passage in 1940–42 is forever associated with the name of the famous skipper of the St. Roch, Henry Asbjørn Larsen1 – and with the assertion of Canadian sovereignty. The common assumption that the transit served sovereignty purposes is often asserted in popular writing but seldom grounded in evidence. Larsen’s writing, coupled with RCMP files, suggests that this motivation factored heavily into the planning and execution of the voyage. Larsen was a native of Norway, having been born at Fredrikstad, a village only a few miles distant from Roald Amundsen’s birthplace at Sarpsborg, on 30 September 1899. His boyhood fan- cies were inevitably captivated by the exploits of Amundsen and the galaxy of other great Nordic explorers and adventurers, both contemporary and historical; in 1914, at barely fifteen years of age, he went to sea to begin his own nautical career. His first voyage was on a cargo sloop owned by two of his uncles, which sailed to Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish ports transporting lumber and other goods. After about a year of this, he was hired by Captain H. Olsen, who took him along with the rest of his crew to Brest, France, to man the sailing ship Baunen, which left for Barbados, Gulfport (Mississippi), and Buenos Aires in early 1916. During the next three years, Larsen sailed continuously on several ships to US and South American ports. To get home from New York in 1919, he embarked on a long roundabout voyage which took him to Cape Town, the East Indies, Ceylon, and the Suez Canal en route to Christiania (Oslo). There he attended the Norwegian State Navigation School, graduating as a fully qualified navigator in the summer of 1920; he then put in a period of compulsory service in the Norwegian navy. In 1922, he became a mate on the Nor- wegian motor ship Theodore Roosevelt, and during the next two years, he sailed between Norway and Pacific Ocean ports, including San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Honolulu, and Japan. While in Seattle on one occasion, he met Amundsen and his pilot Oscar Omdahl, and through them his long-held desire for a career in the North received new impetus and encouragement. In Seattle during the spring of 1924, Danish-born Arctic trader Charlie Klengenberg hired Larsen as navigator. On Klengenberg’s schooner Maid of Orleans, he made two trips to the Beau- fort Sea region in 1924–25 and the summer of 1926. Wintering at Herschel Island during the first voyage, he became acquainted with the inhabitants of the region, Inuit and white alike, and he also took advantage of the opportunity to become familiar with (and even expert in) Inuit modes of was of the opinion that the Force should have a little schooner of its own which could sail everywhere in this enormous area to act as a float- ing detachment in the summer and a permanent station during the winter. 370 The idea had originated with his pre- decessor, Inspector S. T. Wood, who had left for the South a short while earlier after five years’ service in the Arctic, mostly on Herschel Island. Both of these police officers were -ex perienced men who knew the Arctic well, and realized that the RCMP was suffering by being dependent on civilian trading ships for transporta- tion and supplies.3 Needless to say, this prospect provided further Figure 16-1: Inspector Henry Larsen aboard incentive to Larsen to join the force. the RCMP vessel St. Roch. Library and Commissioner Cortlandt Starnes presented Archives Canada / C-070771. the suggestion to Minister of Marine and Fish- eries Arthur Cardin in a letter on 23 October 1924. “The Officer Commanding the Mounted hunting, sealing, fishing, and travelling, which Police at Herschel Island,” Starnes noted, “has were necessary to anyone wishing to be even … recommended that an auxiliary schooner be passably self-reliant in the North. He spoke to purchased for the purpose of carrying Police Inspector T. B. Caulkin, officer commanding at freight to our detachments at Baillie Island and Herschel Island, of his desire to join the RCMP, Tree River from Herschel or the mouth of the and meeting with an encouraging response, he Mackenzie, and also as a movable Detachment, applied for Canadian citizenship on a later vis- such a vessel to move to any point and remain it to Vancouver. This was granted on 18 Nov- for the freeze-up, if necessary.”4 The minister ember 1927, and several months later he was approved the suggestion in January 1925,5 the sworn in as a member of the police force at the initial plan being to purchase a vessel.6 All ef- Fairmont Barracks in Vancouver, on 16 April forts to find a suitable vessel failed, however, 2 1928. so another order in council was issued on 29 The idea of theSt. Roch apparently ori- September 1927 to contract the Burrard Dry ginated with serving Mounties in the North. Dock Company, of North Vancouver, to build a Larsen first learned of it during the winter of schooner for $80,200.7 Construction proceeded 1924–25 from Inspector Caulkin, who during the early months of 1928, with Corporal Ed Pasley of the RCMP as supervisor or “over- seer,” and the ship was ready for service before A HISTORICAL AND LEGAL STUDY OF SOVEREIGNTY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH the end of June. She was named the St. Roch Just how and with whom the idea origin- – “guardian of the poor” – after a parish in the ated of taking the St. Roch through the North- Quebec East constituency of Ernest Lapointe, west Passage appears uncertain. It is likely that whose Ministry of Justice was responsible for the idea began with Larsen himself; it may well the RCMP at the time. be that this was a dream he had cherished prac- The St. Roch was 104 feet in length, 25 feet tically from the time his service with the ship in beam, with draft when loaded of 12½ feet began.