APRIL 12, 2025 – (Cont.) Although Maine borders Canada, during my four years at Bowdoin, the closest I’d gotten to the country to the north was knowing two of its citizens, Mike R. and Bernie G.[1] Both were star players on our Division III championship hockey team in addition to being excellent students and all around nice guys. Both would become physicians in the afterlife—which is how we tended to look at life after college when at the convocation at the start of our freshman year, we were told “these will be the best four years of your life.”
As our class approached the “afterlife,” I wanted to organize a major adventure-event—under the mantle of my class presidency. To make up for lost time and opportunity, I thought it would be fun to go abroad, as it were, or at least out of the country. As Mike and Bernie were quick to remind me, going to Canada counted as “out of the country.”
Of the three ways to go there, the most attractive was by sea—aboard the large car ferry that operated daily between Portland, Maine and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. This method was so full of on-board possibilities, in fact, such as dancing, gambling, fine dining and romantic strolls around the upper deck that the ship rendered “getting there” 100% of the point of going there, not simply “half the fun.” The good ship was the recently refurbished M/S Prince of Fundy, a ship of Swedish registry.
With a group discount, tickets were a mere $35 per guest, and with cash on hand from previous parties, I was able to cover one round of complimentary drinks on board, plus bus transportation between our campus in Brunswick and the wharf in Portland. People rushed to sign up for the 22-hour adventure, which left home port at 10:00 p.m., arrived in Nova Scotia at 8:00 the next morning, then left Canada two hours later and returned to Portland at 8:00 that evening.
My crew of volunteers and I arrived early at the embarkation point to meet our liaison with the crew and to be in place to welcome classmates aboard. It was early in the season, and since our cruise was midweek, the vast majority of passengers would be members of our class plus a number of boyfriends/girlfriends from other classes. After boarding was completed but before casting off, I was with one of my “crew,” leaning on the rail of the upper deck and watching the dockworkers. On the deck immediately below us were a middle-age couple who—by no fault of their own—had managed to book their passage on the same crossing as hundreds of college students who were very much in a party mood.
I felt anticipatory responsibility for whatever havoc my classmates might cause that would interfere with the couple’s enjoyment of their passage to Nova Scotia. Bending slightly over the rail, I called out to them. “Excuse me,” I said. They turned and looked up at me. “Hi! I just wanted to let you know that all the people you see on board . . . we’re from Bowdoin College, and, well, this is a kind of senior field trip we’re taking before graduation, which is next week. I’m officially in charge of arrangements for the field trip and unofficially responsible for what happens. I’d like to apologize in advance for any alcohol-induced behavior that’s unbecoming of students from the alma mater of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Admiral Peary, and lest he be forgotten, President Franklin Pierce. I can assure you, that whatever our shortcomings, my classmates and I mean well.”
The couple didn’t quite know what to make of my apologetic oration. I had not yet consumed a drop of alcohol, so my words weren’t slow or slurred. The poor couple withheld any expression of disapproval, but they also refrained from granting encouragement, as in “Oh, that sounds like so much fun! Can’t wait to see hundreds of college students getting smashed on an ocean liner.” They acknowledged my words with a simple “Okay” and a barely audible, “Thanks.”
I didn’t see the couple for the rest of the night, but then again, I wasn’t searching for them either.
For the first half hour or so, people were reasonably well behaved for the simple reason that they were exploring the vessel. Soon after the ship was underway, I gave a brief welcoming spiel and expressed my hope that everyone would enjoy the trip. To grease the skids, the complimentary drinks were made available, soon followed by the opening of the casino.
By 11:00 p.m., the party was in full gear. By midnight, we were in overdrive. Being all of 21 (or so), we managed to maintain cruising speed well into the early morning hours. Eventually, of course, the mix of alcohol, dancing, poker, slot machines, playing shuffleboard on deck in the fresh ocean air, and walking back and forth, up and down and all over the ship led to slumber wherever you could find a place to recline.
After sunrise but before many people had recovered consciousness, the good ship landed in Yarmouth, a singularly unremarkable destination. On a subsequent trip (via passage on the same ferry, this time with our car aboard), my wife and I spent several days driving around the entire coastline of Nova Scotia, which boasts much spectacular scenery. On our senior class “field trip,” however, Yarmouth was all we would see of N.S. Moreover, since the ship was in port only long enough for off-loading one-way cars and passengers (and minor freight), then reloading another set for the return to Portland, many students didn’t bother to set foot in Canada—or weren’t exactly in condition to do so.
On the return trip we enjoyed decent weather, more partying, and a big dinner. I think people slept exceptionally well the next night after returning to campus. The field trip was a success, and most important, I had reliable information that the same number of students who embarked in Portland disembarked in Portland the following evening. No one was lost at sea, I was told, which is more than could be said of the deck chairs, several of which “went missing” over the stern rail—to the considerable amusement of the inebriated students responsible for the dislocation.
EXCEPT . . . two days later The National Enquirer reported that in fact the trip had been a tragic disaster of the greatest magnitude imaginable.[2] The ship had foundered with the loss of all souls aboard, except for two—the captain and our classmate Karen S., who, according to the tabloid, had saved herself by converting her resume into a makeshift raft. She told of the horror of students not finding the lifeboats and plunging into the ocean “without even a transcript.” Karen also witnessed our classmate Ellen S., a champion diver, execute “a beautiful 2½ off the aft funnel” and heard the strains of the Bowdoin song, “Beneath the Pines” just as the upended bow slipped ominously into the deep.
The cause of the sinking, as reported by the paper, was traced to “thrill-seeking Bowdoin celebrants out for a graduation trip, who pulled the plug on the ship’s outdoor swimming pool in a vain attempt to create a squash court for some of the more well-to-do members of the college class.”
The worst of the tragedy was that it had wiped out the entire graduating class save for Karen S. College fund raisers, the tabloid reported, “are not looking forward to the next 20 years for capital campaign drives with the Class of ’76.” The chief development officer was quoted as having said, “It doesn’t look good for the Class over the next 20 years [. . .] but we have to admit that they’ll be consistent.”
By a lightning bolt from Zeus overpowering Neptune’s trident, the tragedy reported by The National Enquirer was reversed and the tabloid itself was revealed to be an utter spoof produced by The Bowdoin Orient—“The Oldest Continuously[3]-Published College Weekly in the United States.”
Thus ended the international “field trip” of my class presidency.
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
[1] I became good friends with Bill, a year behind me, and Bernie, a year ahead of me. After leading the hockey team to its championship, Bernie became a first line hitman in the B.P.T.O. (“Bowdoin Pie Throwers Organization”), which my campaign manager, Jeff Oppenheim, and I formed after the presidential election was behind us.
[3] I wonder if anyone has called to an editor’s attention, the technical grammatical error—“continuously” instead of “continually”—committed in the course of touting this attribute of the student newspaper. I know I didn’t—having learned the distinction between “continuous” and “continual” long after my undergraduate years.
