The CCGS Henry Larson was at Arctic Bay over the long weekend. Thus far, we’ve seen three of the five icebreakers in the Eastern Arctic fleet (the Larson, Terry Fox and Des Grosslier). The Henry Larson is named for an iconic member of the RCMP.
Supt. Henry Larson was born Norwegian but emigrated to Canada and later joined the RCMP. He became the skipper of the RCMP vessel St. Roch. He skipped the St Roch through her famous voyages. She holds many records pertaining to the Northwest Passage. The St. Roch was the second vessel to navigate the Passage, the first to navigate it from West to East. She was the first to navigate it in both directions, the first to do it in one season, and the first to use what is known as the deep water, or northern route. She was also the first to circumnavigate North America. During all of these first, Henry Larson was her skipper.
Larson later became the Officer Commanding for the Arctic and was closely tied to the Arctic for most of his adult life. I had a couple of opportunities to speak with one of the members who re-opened Dundas Harbour detachment in 1945, John Beinsch. After he left for the south, Larson called him up and asked if he was interested in doing an arctic patrol that summer. John was, and he and Larson basically spent the summer walking around King William Island searching for Franklin artifacts.
We have some personal connections to Supt. Larson. Stephen Jay Gould wrote about an interest of his, sort of a six degrees of separation thing. He was interested in shaking hands with people with close connections to his heroes, such as Charles Darwin. Basically he liked to shake hands with, say, Darwin, through other people in the shortest amount of steps. I’ve shook the hand of a man who travelled on the St. Roch and would have shook hands with Larson. One of the Inuit special constables that served at Dundas Harbour, he has since passed on.
The other connection is that Larson was the person that commissioned our boat, the M.V. Fort Hearne, and almost certainly would have been on her. Now if only our boat wasn’t on the other side of the Arctic.
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2 responses
That’s a great picture.
I like reading about famous ship captains. Nice pic.