Take It From Day To Day

Being of a certain age and, of Canadian heritage, I used to listen to the late Stan Rogers as avidly as I listened to Stompin' Tom Connors, Woody Guthrie, The Limelighters, Schooner Fare, and many other folk musicians. 

One of the songs I really enjoyed, being a merchant mariner, was Stan's song "Take It From Day To Day", which was about a person sailing on the RCMP's vessel "St. Roch", during its transit of the Northwest Passage during WW2. 

The captain of the vessel was a fellow by the name of Larsen. 

Okay. Good song. Sounds like a tough master of the vessel. Right. And? 

Soooo..... during my voyage to Oslo, sure don't Sandy and I decide to visit the Norwegian Maritime Museum and the Fram Museum. The Fram is dedicated to polar exploration and has two of the most famous vessels to ever engage in polar exploration and navigation, the Fram and the Gjoa. 

In the hall that holds the Gjoa, I'm looking at the presentations and interpretations of various artefacts and what do I espy? 

This would be THE uniform of Henry Larsen

Born in Norway, Henry Larsen immigrated to Canada in 1928 and joined the RCMP. Being a seaman, he naturally gravitated to the St. Roch and wound up in command of her in short order. In 1940-1942, the St. Roch travelled the Northwest Passage from west to east and patrolled the Arctic being THE representation of Canada to everyone there. She then returned the same route in 1944. 

Just to emphasize, the St. Roch has a crew of eight men. These eight RCMP officers covered the whole of the Arctic during their voyage. If that's not a movie that needs to be made, then I don't know what could make for a better script. 

As a historical miniatures wargamer, there's a number of scenarios, including prevention of a German attempt at establishing a weather station on Greenland, that I could see these guys being a part of. 

It's a heck of a good song, so it might make a heck of a good wargame and maybe, just maybe, one amazing movie if a Tom Hanks or a Steven Spielberg would take it on... but that's just me.