Thirty years ago, a baby girl was carried home from the Prince Rupert hospital to a cozy house on the east side. A fourth-generation Rupertite on her dad’s side, she grew up loving the ocean and dreaming of one day finding her prince sailing in on the tide. Even after sailing around the world herself, she still comes back to that little house where she ran and played freely as a child in the woods behind it.
The irony of her love of the water is mirrored in her name — Ocean Rutherford.
Her grandparents immigrated from Sweden and purchased a homestead on Porcher Island, where they would fish and log out of the community. She grew up dipping her toes into the Oona River, learning to fish, and having picnics in Dodge Cove. The property is still owned by the family today, with her brother living there. She highly recommends that people hop on the shopper’s ferry on a sunny day, which sails out to the island community, so they can catch a glimpse of the city from another angle.
Ocean’s mom is from prairie farmland in Alberta, where she would spend summers. It was indeed a life of Hiway 16, she said.
“We’d go there to the lakes in the summertime, then do our back-to-school shopping in Prince George on our way back home. Then we’d be here for the rest of the year,” she said.
“I’ve been able to use Prince Rupert as a home base. I love the community, I love going to the grocery store. It’s such a social activity. People know me and my family since before I was born, and I deeply appreciate that.”
As long as she can get out of the city to find some sunshine, mixed with a little R&R, she is more than content, she said.
“I’ve been able to travel quite a bit, and there’s never been a place where I’ve said, ‘Oh wow, I want to uproot myself and completely make this my new home. I’ve always been happy with Prince Rupert as my ground zero.”
She said it’s neat to watch families grow and her time as a lifeguard at the swimming pool gave her that opportunity. She worked there for just less than eight years, getting to know all the kids in town, and creating connections.
“I did that from the age of 16 to 24. When I was 24, I was like, oh, shoot, this is like a beautiful, really good job, but there were just a few other things that I wanted to try in life,” she said.
Commercial fishing for albacore tuna netted her interest for a couple of years, where she worked with a family friend.
“That really opened up my eyes and my world to work on the water. I realized it was very important to me to document my sea time and make it account for more than just a paycheck and lock it into different tickets.”
“It was just super social and a lot of fun. In between those years, I would work for a season, and then I would travel,”.
Ocean went to marine school and obtained her 150-tonne mate’s ticket. A move to Vancouver saw her working on a whale-watching boat. She voyaged a summer with the Coast Guard. She toured around India. Her journeys took her to further shores in Sweden, where she was a nanny.
“It had always been a dream of mine to cross an ocean and sail around the world. I had romanticized the idea … because I had grown up reading stories of young people sailing around the world,”.
Stating she was not brave enough to do that by herself, she commandeered herself a position on a fishing boat, leaving from Steveston. The 35-day sailing over the blue waves and white caps landed her in Tahiti on Christmas Eve, alone in a hotel room.
“It was amazing. It was really neat to feel the temperature change and get warmer and to watch the constellations above us change at night. We saw flying fish, as well.”
It took her just a couple of days to gather her bearings, and she was soon island-hopping around French Polynesia.
After those years of travelling, she said the beaconing call of home was ringing louder in her ears. Her love of working on the water is evident as she can be found as a deckhand on tugboats around her “ground zero” when she is not penning her adventures into children’s books.
After returning from navigating the world, Ocean had some down and ground time for her creativity and love of wordplay to grow. The phrase “Ocean’s Captain” lit up her dark one night. It resounded with her as she was working toward her captains’ ticket.
“There had been times in my life where I’m daydreaming about finding my own captain instead of Prince Charming. I wanted to find my own boat captain that could take me sailing around the world, and we’d do these grand adventures together,” she laughed.
Mulling the thought in her head of capturing her brewing ideas onto paper, she said she realized she had a story to tell.
“Here I am, in one way looking for my own ‘Prince Captain’, but then also becoming a captain myself … not only a boat captain but the captain of my own life.”
“I wanted to make this story a tribute to the lifestyle that people here have. It is like the wild west of the North Pacific, I suppose. It can be a wild and beautiful and cozy life, actually.”
That life, she said, that’s unique to Prince Rupert has come full circle for her. After being supported by her community and people who assisted her through her writing journey, she was invited to participate in the BC Culture Days mini-film fest, “Art in the Times of COVID”.
Her “Ocean’s Captain” story, which has been published into a book, was one of 18 pieces from local artists featured in the national celebration of art and culture.
“This idea of happily ever after leading to meeting Prince Captain — I have to remind myself it’s not up to one single outside person to deliver me to happily ever after. I can create my own happily ever after. I don’t have to do it alone. It’s truly a community affair … or it can be supported by community. We don’t have to travel those voyages alone.”
K-J Millar | Journalist
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