Waves of Compassion

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Bill Gannon left his job at Daon Development, opened a private practice, and became our accountant. Gannon guided us in creating a cash-flow projection based on all the campaign and fundraising ideas we had. 'Do the right thing,' he encouraged us, 'and the money will come. It's the first law of money.' Gannon, who still has a private accounting practice in Vancouver, recalls, 'We drafted a budget of $300,000 for the year, to do everything we wanted to do. We put 20,000 names from the first lottery onto a mailing list, then walked into the Royal Bank in Vancouver with a cash-flow plan. The bank gave us a $75,000 line of credit, and another $75,000 secured by personal guarantees. People may not realize that the Royal Bank of Canada helped finance the environmental revolution!'

Watson, Walrus, Hunter, and I published the first issue of the Greenpeace Chronicles newspaper out of the old Georgia Straight office in the fall of 1975, covering our voyage and other environmental stories. Watson organized a campaign to protest the Canadian Harp seal hunt in Labrador. We were sending money to McTaggart in Paris and we were making plans for a second voyage in the summer of 1976 to confront the Japanese whalers, this time with a converted mine sweeper ('Mind Sweeper' we called it) the James Bay.

The money was spent faster than it came in, but magic, it seemed, was still with us. Gannon recalls, 'At one point our bookkeeper stopped keeping the bank balance, and started handing out blank checks to Watson for his seal campaign. By the time we launched the James Bay in June we were overdrawn at the bank.' Gannon oversaw ticket sales for a send-off benefit concert with Country Joe MacDonald at the Jericho Beach site of the UN Habitat Forum Conference, held in Vancouver that summer. 'After the boat left, I went back to the office and took a call from our bank manager who informed me we were $27,000 overdrawn. 'It's okay,' I told him, there was a Brinks truck on the way with a cash deposit from the concert. The deposit was for $27,200.'

The following year, 1977, there were some 15 to 20 Greenpeace groups around the world. Watson led a second seal campaign to Labrador, this time accompanied by actress Bridget Bardot. We were still sending money to McTaggart in France and we prepared the James Bay, Greenpeace VII, for another voyage against the whalers. Spong went to Hawaii to launch a second anti-whaling boat from there. We were broke again and needed money for diesel fuel and for a direct mail funding drive.

'I asked the bank for a $15,000 extension on our line but they refused,' Gannon recalls. 'I went into the office to get some graphs I had prepared, and Julie McMaster handed me a brown paper bag that had arrived in the mail. It was filled with U.S. dollars.' Inside the bag was a note from a hermit in a mountain cabin in Washington. 'I'm dying of cancer,' the note said. 'This is all the money I have. I know you can use it. Thanks for what you are doing.' Gannon took the bag into the bank. 'When I walked in, the manager just shook his head and said 'No way.' I emptied the brown bag out on his desk and asked if he could have a teller count it. It came to $15,500.'

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