Waves of Compassion

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In the meantime, we had to secure the Zodiacs and get the Phyllis Cormack, now Greenpeace V, off the dock in Vancouver, but we were broke. Then one night at a Greenpeace meeting, local mystic poet, Henry Payne, showed up, recited a long, shamanistic ode about our spiritual kinship with 'every creeping, crawling thing' and then donated to the cause five acres of land in Langley. Eyes widened and heads twisted. Is this vagabond poet with an eagle feather for real? Indeed, our lawyers confirmed the land transfer and Bobbie Innes came up with the idea of having a lottery for the land rather than selling it outright. We raised twice the land value in lottery ticket sales, 20,000 tickets at $2 each, and the voyage was on.

Hunter was the great attracter and includer. He led the meetings and encouraged everyone to contribute. People showed up at meetings to tell us about a space alien connection with whales or warn us about CIA infiltration. Hunter was always gracious, but he also moved the discussion along toward the tasks at hand. He was a master of delegation, and the numbers swelled in what we called 'The Great Whale Conspiracy.'

In March of 1975, Greenpeace rented its first public office at 2007 West Fourth Avenue, right in the middle of Vancouver's Hippie Row. It was not much of an office, no filing cabinets or desks, just a few shelves and tables, and two phones. Julie McMaster, an older woman with clerical experience showed up to offer her services as our office manager. She set up some basic office systems to help us keep track of our phone messages and meetings. More than that, she became our surrogate mother, reminding us to clean up after ourselves and keep our appointments. Our gear began to collect in the corners: outboard motors, sound equipment, radios, and provisions for the voyage.

The old Cecil hangout was transformed into a strip bar, so we moved our beer-inspired strategy meetings to the Bimini pub across the street from the new office. At an upstairs table near the window we hatched our plans to find and confront the whalers. From the window, we could look across the street to the Greenpeace office window. Julie would come to the window and yell across the street when an important phone call came through. The corner of the pub became a center of activity, with activists, journalists, and sailors coming and going constantly.

In the meantime, Spong was in Norway at the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics, where he'd convinced the director to let him peruse the files. Ostensibly, he was researching the habits of sperm whales, but once he found what he was looking for, his heart skipped a beat. There in a file before him were the dates, longitudes, latitudes, and kill numbers for the entire Soviet and Japanese whaling fleets. He copied it all down in his notebook, went back to his hotel, and called Hunter.

'We believed then, and I still believe,' says Hunter, 'that we were blessed by higher powers. The Pope, the Buddhist Karmapa, and the Kwakuitl Indians had all blessed our flag. We fully believed by then that we were fulfilling the Warriors of the Rainbow prophecy.' The Catholics prayed, the Buddhists meditated, the pagans chanted, but we all believed we were on a spiritual mission. We expected miracles, and we watched for signs. One day a bearded street musician showed up claiming to be 'an animal affinity expert.' His name was Melville Gregory. Hunter gasped. Herman Melville, of course, had written Moby Dick and Gregory Peck played Captain Ahab in the movie! 'Hunter figured it was a sign,' remembers Gregory, 'so I became the crew musician. We got some underwater speakers and microphones to communicate with the whales.' Gregory wrote an anthem for the group, 'We Are Whales,' which was sung at every opportunity.

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