Old Maui - redux a la Sea Shepherd

Old Ross Sea
Sung to the tune of ‘Old Maui’ by Stan Rogers

It’s a damn tough life
Full of toil and strife
We whale saviors undergo

And we won’t give a damn
When the gale is done
How hard the winds did blow

‘Cause we’re southward bound
To the Antarctic grounds
With a good ship taut and free

And we won’t give a damn
When we drink our rum
With the whales of old Ross Sea

Chorus

Rollin’ down to old Ross Sea, me boys
Rollin’ down to old Ross Sea,
We’re southward bound
To the Antarctic grounds
Rollin’ down to old Ross Sea

Once more we sail
With the Southerly gail
Through the ice and wind and rain

Them Fin back whales
Them Minke tails
We soon shall see again

Six hellish weeks
We’ll passed away
On the cold Antarctic Sea

‘Cause we’re southward bound
To the Antarctic ground
Rollin’ down to old Ross Sea

Chorus

How soft the breeze
Through the island trees
Now the sun is far astern

Our rope traps sprung
Those whalers done
No more will they return

May all the whales
Be safe and sound
From the cold harpooner’s steel

So that whales abound
In the Antarctic ground
Rollin’ down to old Ross Sea

Chorus

Book inspired thoughts

Engineer’s Blog
By David Nickarz - Tenth Engineer
January 27, 2009

It’s now 54 days into our mission to stop the pirate whaling of the Japanese government in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary. We left Hobart about 6 days ago now, after a short break to refuel and re-provision.

We have now returned to the whale sanctuary. This refuge had been established by several nations in the early 1990’s as a place whales could live and feed, unmolested by humanity. Whalers ignored the establishment of this sanctuary and continued their commercial slaughter under the lie of scientific whaling. They resorted to this lie because a moratorium on commercial whaling, established in 1986.

After almost finishing Andrew Darby’s book Harpoon, I’m given a sense of history of the holocaust that humanity has inflicted upon the great whales of the world. Whalers have started with the largest of the whales—the Blue Whale and chased it to the ends of the earth, and to the edge of extinction. The Right Whale was the ‘right’ whale to kill, not because of their size, but because they happen to float when you kill them. There is no great mystery to the names given to the great whales--in fact some of them are down right ignorant.

The Sperm Whale was given it’s name because, as Farley Mowat puts it in his book Sea of Slaughter, “because some idiot thought that the large sack of oil in its head was full of sperm.” (I’m paraphrasing).

The Minke Whale was named after a German named Mincke, who accompanied Svend Foyn, a 19th century sealer, often called the father of industrial whaling. He developed both a ship fast enough to catch the quicker whales and the grenade-tipped harpoon, which is still used today. The other name for a Minke whale is Piked whale—not much better.

I propose we change the name to something vastly more dignified than after a seal clubber or the method of slaughter.

All this history brings me back to my role on this ship. I sit here day after day in this engine room—watching dials, cleaning up and feeding oil into engines. After 53 days and more than 100, four hour shifts, I can say that it’s wearing me down.

I am encouraged to know that I am part of an effort that could see the end to Antarctic whaling—just as the generation before me saw the end of whaling in Australia and the introduction of a ban on commercial whaling world-wide.

As we approach the fleet of whale killers, I have a greater sense of history and my place in it thanks in part to Andrew Darby’s book Harpoon.

Dave's Antarctic musings

Engineer’s Blog
By David Nickarz - Tenth Engineer

We are underway the second time this season to find and stop the criminal whaling fleet from Japan. This is my third Antarctic whaling campaign with the Sea Shepherds and I hope it will be my last. Putting up with the rough seas and time away from my loved ones takes its toll on us volunteers.

We can’t just walk off the ship and go to the nearest pub for a beer, or to the nearest park for a dose of terrestrial wilderness. We are stuck in this noisy metal box for the next several weeks. Of course, it’s nothing compared to what the Minke and Fin whales have to endure.

Our purpose and the vast ocean wilderness keep us going. We’ve seen a number of sea birds including the Albatross which seems to hover without beating its wings. They fly around the ship, perhaps hoping to find discarded food scraps. Maybe the Albatross thinks we are a fishing vessel and is waiting for the discarded portion of the catch. Who knows?

Our engine room watch has been uneventful and routine. I hope it stays that way.

A Ban on Parks Logging in Manitoba

A Ban on Logging in Parks

By David Nickarz

The Province of Manitoba has decided to ban logging from all provincial parks (except Duck Mountain) by April 1 of 2009. This is good news.

It’s about time that our Provincial Parks were saved from logging. People have been working for 18 years to accomplish this goal. It’s a credit to people such as Pat and Russ Popp, Eric Reder and Billy Granger of the Wilderness Committee, Ron Thiessen of CPAWS and numerous park users who spoke out successfully for our Wilderness.

The late Alice Chambers worked for years to preserve our parks before anyone thought of even asking for logging to be removed from parks.

I’ve been working on this issue since about 1990. Tembec (Then Abitibi-Price), the newsprint mill in Pine Falls, Manitoba was renewing their logging licence and had successfully lobbied the provincial government to allow them to log in parks. They raised the spectre of job losses due to the mere 5% of their wood sources that came from parks.

In 1993 the Parks Act was amended to allow logging in parks all over Manitoba. By 1997 parks had been carved up into land use categories, allowing for resource extraction in the oldest stands of trees. The older trees (meaning more volume of wood for the mill) in parks were targeted first—perhaps in an effort to avoid any new conservation measure that would get logging out of the parks.

The once lush forests near Bird Lake, Cat Lake and Long Lake have been permanently degraded for their private profits. Tembec’s legacy is marked by clear cuts, degraded soils and displaced wildlife. If you look at a ‘forest inventory’ (what an awful term for a living ecosystem) map of Nopiming Park, you see that most of the areas off limits for logging are recent burn sites, which have younger trees not suitable for the mill. The other places are too close to cabins and campgrounds.

The province will pay Tembec more than three million dollars to get out of Nopiming Park. This is as a ransom for our public heritage. Tembec has profited off the destruction and degradation of Nopiming ever since it was a park established in the late 1960’s. They’ve roaded it, clear cut it and left it a shell of its former self. Over the years, they have also been charged for violating numerous conservation laws.

They’ve made their clear cuts too big, logged right up to rivers and streams, logged too close to bald eagle’s nests, clear cut in threatened Woodland Caribou habitat and spray toxic pesticides. They spill oil in the forest, leave garbage behind and lie about it all through their front man Vince Keenan.

Tembec should be held accountable for these crimes against nature. They should be paying three million dollars to start reforestation work in the park. Their assets need to be seized and the mill needs to shut down. They pollute the mouth of the Winnipeg River to the tune of thirty million gallons per day. They burn coal to fuel their mill and don’t even use recycled paper anymore.

The mill buildings should be torn down and the land reforested. The name of the town should be changed to Pine Stands, Manitoba.

Does this all sound too unrealistic to you? So did asking for a parks logging ban 18 years ago.

Listeriosis

I imagine the best way not to get Listeriosis is to stop eating pre-packaged, pre-cut sandwich meat. That stuff is really not good for you in the first place, and now can kill you. I haven't eaten meat or any animal products for 16 years. Do I know that it has done me any good? Yes. I don't have Listeriosis.

I Need to Start Writing Again

By David Nickarz

I haven’t written anything in my blog for a while. I want to update you on what I’m up to and what I’m about to do.

I just spent a week at the Youth Activist Retreat in Clearwater, Manitoba. The retreat is for youth between the ages of 16 and 18 to learn and share stories about activism. I ran a workshop about Direct Action which covered quite a bit of ground.

There was some theory about non-violence, civil disobedience, media work and the dangers of activism. I used many of the actions that I’ve participated in as working examples of the theory. I offered the same workshop for three days and after the third one we did a mock action.

I thoroughly enjoyed the work and also helped with dishes and cleaning up.

There was one workshop that needs mentioning. It was the Sustainable Action workshop ran by Lindsay. Ironically, it was rushed because it started late and the bus was waiting for us, so it was cut short. It was also the workshop that the organizers and mentors needed the most. Activists are the most self-destructive folk out there—sad to say.

Next year I want to make an effort to incorporate this theme in all the workshops, maybe culminating in a final talk that ties it all together.

Operation Musashi

In June the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society officially announced plans to return to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary to once again oppose illegal Japanese whaling activities. This will be the Sea Shepherd's fifth campaign to Antarctic waters, my third, and will be called Operation Musashi. Miyamoto Musashi is the legendary Japanese strategist who wrote the Book of Five Rings. For more information on this campaign, please go to www.seashepherd.org.

This could be the most important campaign for the whales. For the last two years, we have been able to prevent hundreds of whales from being slaughtered. This might be the year that we shut it down for good.

I’m heading to Australia in November to meet the ship. I will be meeting with several veteran crew members and then spending several weeks in a metal box, out on the ocean with cameras in our face the whole time to film the drama.

I think Animal Planet will be filming the action again.

As you may have guessed, life on the ship can be extreme—joy and pain at the same time. Nothing compares to the beauty of the Antarctic waters, the wildlife and the remoteness of that wilderness. I’m looking forward to it.

My Buy Nothing Christmas

By David Nickarz

My feelings around christmas are mixed. I was raised in the Anglican church and was never indoctrinated into the Christian faith. I left the church when I was 17.

In our family, chrismas was about getting together with family and buying copious quantities of gifts. I appreciated the family gathering but the gift side of things was a chore. When I became old enough to start buying gifts I began to feel the anxiety. I was worried about who to buy for. My immediate family was a given. What about cousins, or close friends? How much money did I have to spend?

I certainly didn’t have any money left over after the big day.

It took me a number of years, but I have come to not participate in the commercial aspect of Christmas. I will not buy any gifts and will not accept any. If I do get any then I will donate them to an appropriate charity.

What’s your plan for this Christmas?