hand, stinking with whisky and salvaged cigarette stubs, reached across the table and covered my mouth. “You shut the hell up, boy,” he whispered as he looked around the room to see if anyone had overheard. “You don’t even know who the hell you’re talking to.” If the old geezer had grabbed and shaken me and thrown me into the frigid waters of Cook Inlet, he couldn’t have shocked me more. It was a profoundly personal awakening. I was no longer the “good boy” society had laboured for two decades to mould—I was suddenly an enemy of the state, a felon, traitor and fugitive. I had to get out.
My homeless and alcoholic acquaintance proved to be a shrewd strategist and, fortunately for me, chose to be my partner in crime instead of putting himself back in the booze through possible reward money from turning me in. He was a former Merchant Marine, before the juice got the better of him, and he knew a thing or two about marine law.
“The Wickersham’s leaving tomorrow evening,” he said. “You need to get on it.” The MV Wickersham was a vessel of the Alaska Marine Highway System, which normally plied the inside protected waters between Bellingham, Washington, and the town of Haines on Alaska’s panhandle.
“How’s that gonna help me?” I asked.
“The damn boat’s built in Norway,” the old wino shouted as if I were deaf.
“So what?” I responded with equal belligerence.
My accomplice put his coffee down, pulled one of the cigarette stubs from his tattered shirt pocket, lit it and proceeded to explain the Jones Act. Designed to protect US shipbuilding, this act makes it illegal for a foreign-built vessel to travel from one US port to another without a stop in a foreign country. “If you can get aboard,” he said with the air of a seaman who knew his ropes, “they can’t legally take you off in the USA. The ship must stop in Vancouver.”
I didn’t have enough of the required money to allow legal entry into Canada, but that didn’t deter my strategist. “Take whatever money you got and convert it to traveller’s cheques tomorrow morning,” he told me. “Go back to the bank before closing time, tell them you’ve lost them, and have them replaced … you’ll have double the show money you have now.” It was good advice again. The next morning I headed to the bank.
I phoned in reservations for the sailing and showed up just before the MV Wickersham set sail. This was her first-time-ever feasibility run across the open waters of the Gulf of Alaska, and procedures were anything but fine-tuned. “Where’s your ticket?” the purser demanded as I tried to board at the last minute.
“Didn’t have time to purchase it before the office closed,” I lied while flashing my ID in a phony show of credibility.
“Go to the chief purser’s desk right away and pay for your ticket and your stateroom,” he said as they pulled up the passenger gangway. Of course, I didn’t do what he wanted. I couldn’t afford having my name on any passenger list for police checks. I was a fugitive now; I had a licence to lie.
I stowed away inside a lifeboat with a snug cover. It wasn’t exactly first class, with an old army surplus blanket for bedding and a jar of crunchy peanut butter for food, but at least I was spared the nausea of a ship full of seasick passengers puking in their cabins. All the way out Cook Inlet from Anchorage, I kept hearing on the public address system: “Will passenger Thomas Patrick Henley please report to the chief steward’s office.” By the time we hit the open Gulf of Alaska and a good October gale, the crew didn’t give a damn anymore about who was on board and who wasn’t. By the time we reached Vancouver, the staff was so weary of mopping vomit that they paid no attention to who was departing. Canada Customs and Immigration were considerably more alert.
“You’re not on the passenger list,” they challenged me as I attempted to disembark.
“Must be a typo error.” I shrugged innocently.
“How long do you intend to stay in Canada? How much money are you carrying?” they asked firmly.
“Only a day or two to see the sights,” I answered respectfully, flashing a wad of phony traveller’s cheques. I was in.
A hippie at the dockside recognized a kindred spirit getting off the Wickersham and commented in passing, “Lay low, man. It’s pretty heavy here.” I had no idea what he was talking about. This was Canada, I was safe—or so I thought.
I headed for nearby Stanley Park, which I’d noticed as the ship passed closely by on its way to berth. The maples were in their autumn array, and their red and gold colours, reminding me of Michigan, beckoned to me. I was strolling along a park path with my backpack on, lost deep in thought about what to do next, when a policeman on horseback trotted alongside and forced me off the trail.
“I’m gonna bust you for possession of a weapon,” the officer said sternly.
“What weapon?” I asked in astonishment. I looked in the direction of the officer’s steely gaze and realized he was referring to the skinning knife attached to my belt. “Oh, that’s just my bush knife,” I answered, trying naively to be friendly. “I just came down from Alaska, and everyone up there wears them.” I smiled and started to put the knife inside my backpack.
“Now I guess I’ll bust you for a concealed weapon,” the cop growled. It was obvious I was dealing with an attitude here more than an issue, so I disposed of the knife in a park litter bin.
“Look, smartass,” the cop responded in a venomous tone. “We’ve had our hands tied long enough, but now we’re gonna start winning.” With that cheery thought he rode off, and I searched for a phone booth.
I was told in Alaska that Vancouver had a free hostel set up for American draft dodgers, deserters and conscientious objectors. I counted myself in the third category, as I’d stopped dodging the draft when I deliberately gave up my safe student deferment status at MSU, and I had never enlisted, so deserting was never an option. I did not consider any one of these titles more honourable than the others; I just happened to be a Vietnam War objector, along with more of my generation than the US government was ever willing to admit.
The person who answered the phone at the hostel said they could give me floor space in the basement to roll out my blanket as the house was crammed full, but they also sounded the same seemingly paranoid warning: “It’s pretty heavy around here, man.” It wasn’t until I spotted a newspaper at a bus stop newsstand that I had any idea what was going on. “War Measures Act Declared” read the banner headline in bold five-inch font. Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a one-time strong civil libertarian, had imposed martial law on the entire country to deal with the kidnapping of a British diplomat and the murder of a French cabinet minister by the Quebec separatist group Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ).
Vancouver’s right-wing Mayor Tom Campbell was using the unprecedented and unrestricted powers to run hippies and draft dodgers out of town. Welcome to Canada, I thought; I now have the same rights as any Canadian citizen—none! I had come here for freedom, but arrived on the day Canada became a police state. The War Measures Act has been invoked only three times in Canadian history: World War I, World War II and the day I arrived as a refugee.
The Vancouver hostel for war objectors was no picnic—two RCMP squad cars were parked out front keeping a twenty-four-hour-a-day watch on the place. As luck would have it, the guy who ran the place had a French Canadian girlfriend, and that made her an FLQ suspect. Anyone arriving or departing from the house was also suspect and was followed. This was certainly not what I had come to Canada for, and it influenced my direction: I would not apply for asylum in a country under martial law—what would be the point?
