Do you have a maritime memory or a salty story to share? To celebrate our 70th birthday on April 18, we’re collecting seventy maritime memories to showcase in a virtual storyboard.
We’re delighted to receive so many memories in the form of poetry! Below is a roundup of poetry submissions…so far. Read more about how to submit yours here:
Log Towers Lament by Dave Hodgson
First light in the bay and the start of our day
Coffee on, caulk boots too, out on the booms making a plan
Plan made and breakfast too, sit down with the crew to set up our work
Pike poles and peavees, spikes and shackles, the tools of our trade in hand
Away on the booms for our tow to make up with chains and tween straps
Pull this string out to get started, then across the bay to pick up another
Keep adding our boom numbers to make up our town in the clear
Tow finally finished and ready to go, stow the grounds and make sure that all is secure
A rest and a meal waiting tide and the weather
Pulling time at last, lanterns lit and in place, hooked up, and away we go nice and slow.
Spirits in the Night
by Arletta Murray
In the dead of night they come
Cocooned within my sleeping bag
Sub-merged, Sus-pended
Deep in the folds of sleep
Then at once
Eyes-wide: Awake!
Senses full on: Electric!
A crack in the universe has opened
And from it rises a throaty chorus of primal, canine, crooning
That echoes eternal in the damp, West Coast air
Then just as suddenly it stops, and as silence descends, with it fear
Alone in my camp tent, no floor, canvas walls pitched inches above the wet gravel surface
And all around me a flurry of soft padding and the near simultaneous in and ex-halations of a well-choreographed raiding party
Intent on locating, mapping and documenting our small encampment
They run rings around each tent as we call out absurdly, one to another, ‘you awake,’ ‘just checking,’ ‘everyone ok’
Undeterred they rally at the centre and resume their broadcast
Awoooooo, Aow, Aow, Awoooooooo
Battling the odds and sensitive to incursions
These heralds of an ancient tongue are bound
By vocalizations passed down generation to generation
As we shelter immobile, illiterate and uncomprehending
Their lupine alert goes out to species kith and kin
To the ravens who come by day to watch over us from blackened spires on barren hills
Totems to recent forest fires
They, the dark ministers of ashes and dust
To the bears, nose to air, who look on vexed but unmoved
As tree planters’ flee, lunch bags in hand, wet-pants round their knees
To the eagles whose wing strokes sound as they fly low over the small bays
To the salmon, all fight gone, eggs deposited, they linger listless in the streams
Food for bear, eagle and wolf
To a small band of misfit tree planters
Led by Finno-Canadian Archi-Dyke, Sinikka Muikkula
Dumped at the intersection of two logging roads
Camped out, caught out
Super-charged but calm
Fully present and with presence of mind I savor this encounter
Where the timbre, amplification and correlation of storytellers spirals
And the howls of the wolf pack merge and are woven together with the fable of Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf
And with all the tellers, poets, and the like, who question who we are, and our worth
To live amongst the wolves
Still, I know as cook, I am up first in the morning
What is a Maritime Memory?
Any story that connects you to a maritime experience.
We are accepting submissions of:
- A written story that will be displayed as text
- A poem, short quote, or recipe
- A photo or photo series that recalls a memory or displays an important object
- An artwork or performance about a memory
- A video of the memory or referencing the memory
Make sure to submit yours by April 10, 2025!
Poem by Andrea Klassen
The noise was too much,
Until the waves whispered peace,
And we found our calm.
Our Collection
by Jamie Webb
Seventy years to gather,
Objects of every ilk.
Sextant, swords, and silver
Handkerchiefs in silk
Tilikum, Trekka, and Dorothy,
Six score and more under sail.
Copper tots and pusser rum,
Packets of lost lovers’ mail.
Thousands of detailed drawings,
Competing for space with charts.
Cock hats, boots, and frock coats,
Boxes of old engines parts.
Island Tug, VMD, Yarrows,
Immortalised in the stacks.
Thermopylae Club’s early logbooks,
Sailmaker’s palms and bee’s wax.
Menus and china and dining room silver,
Blue Peters and bunting Red Dusters.
Fleets of fine builders’ models,
And orders for midnight crew musters.
Leather bound tales of daring,
Notes scratched on bits of paper.
Fresnel lenses and fine marine paintings,
A shaft with a smooth finished taper.
Index cards, files, and digital,
Boxes and shelves full of treasure.
Lovingly counted and cared for,
Collectively worth beyond measure.
Last Day in Grenville Channel by Alex Zimmerman
The morning sun at the head of the inlet shines down on the waterfall’s roar,
As another day dawns in a whispering breeze on the trail of sail and oar.
With this wind there might be no need to stretch and pull and curl,
I might have a chance to raise those sails, too long so tightly furled.
So hurry the breakfast, pack up the tent and stow the rest of the gear,
Lower the board, step both the masts, drop the mizzen and cleat it in.
Hoist up the foresail, then from the bottom, break the anchor clear.
Take the tiller in hand, harden in the sheet, and settle back with a grin.
I wish you were here to see me, boys, finally – a sailing day!
But hope is dashed as I round the corner, for out in the main channel there,
The zephyr grows more ever more fitful, then it completely dies away,
‘Twas naught but a vagrant sea breeze, a delusion and a snare.
I lower the rig, fit the oars in the locks and bend my back once more,
And what’s worse luck, I have the tide to buck, all morning along the shore.
As hours tick slowly by, only short breaks can I find, and for them I am more than ready,
In the weakened current behind a point, sometimes there’s even a back-eddy.
Then just when I need it, along about noon, I pull into a small creek mouth,
A place to rest, drop the hook and eat, watch the boats, then once more head south.
The tide’s turned, the sun’s out, the wind’s up, perhaps this time to stay,
I wanted good wind for sailing, now I’ve got it, it’s time to be on my way.
The tide’s in my favour the whole afternoon, though I’m headed twelve mile dead to windward,
Though where I’m bound won’t see me there soon, I’ll be tack upon tack, shore to shore, sailing hard.
Ah, what a glorious sail that day, perhaps the best that ever I’ll see!
Set up the GPS; keep one eye on the telltales, and one eye on the VMG.
The least little lapse in attention, and the speed it drops by a knot,
Concentrate, lad, stay focused! Don’t deviate your helm by a jot,
And maybe, just possibly, maybe, in this narrow and desolate channel, so very far from home,
If you sail the reach of it, to the best of your skill, though there’s no one to witness your deed,
You’ll win through to a quiet safe harbour, far from the tumult and foam,
Before the tide turns against you and bright day to dark night finally cedes.
A mere mile and a half to the Point now, a couple more tacks and I’m round,
But the afternoon’s gone and so is my tide and with it my sailing wind.
I’m back on the oars, and fighting a slop, left over from out in the Sound,
Now bury the loom of the oar, now slice off the top of a wave, I wish the sea would make up its mind.
I’d hoped to be out of it well before now, near the end of this long, long day,
But there is nowhere to run and nothing to be done, except heave and sweat and curse.
At long last the Point’s gained, and slowly round it I creep, to the shelter of the deep wide bay,
Where the sea is dead still, and quietly I dip and lift the leaden oars, while aching muscles I nurse.
The waxing moon tracks close behind the orange of the setting sun, down the fading blue sky of the west,
As I anchor my boat a cable from shore, I feel I’ve earned me an outsized beer, then a long tranquil night of rest.
