Swimming Upstream

The small fishing village of Wrangell on the Alaskan Panhandle had just recently offered itself to cruise ships, which almost doubled the city’s population every time they dock. The city proper is an average frontier town, not flashy, mostly valuable to tourists as a hub for hiking and glacier-viewing excursions.

As a cruise ship worker, my interests were a bit more practical. I wanted Wi-Fi, which is typical of us ship rats. Onboard internet is expensive, and unlike major cities, Wrangell only had one restaurant with decent enough Wi-Fi to get the job done. But unlike most of my coworkers, I was one of the few people in the world foolish enough to be a vegan in the cruise industry. And in Alaska, in a small town, I knew that salmon swimming upstream would have an easier time.

So I did what I usually do at ports like these. I found the nearest market and loaded up on provisions. I perused the menus on the restaurants nearby, hoping that some of the dishes would slip past the watchful eyes of the carnivores and qualify as accidental veganism. But one of these places had an item that just broke my heart. They called it a P.L.E.T.A. burger, a People Love Eating Tasty Animals burger, basically loaded with every type of meat under the sun, and an obvious dig at the animal rights organization. Given the pressure I had been under the past few months, it felt like such a slap in the face. Shy and emotionally weary, I made my retreat, thinking the ship couldn’t leave this horrible place fast enough.

I remembered how happy I had been when I let go of cheese, the final obstacle still binding me to an industry I had come to view as deadly and destructive. I took the plunge of giving up my favorite foods and discovered that beneath the surface was – more delicious food. People still tell me that they might change their diet if only they had my will power, but the truth is I have no instinct for self-discipline at all. Simply put, once I found four or five restaurants near my house where I could have full-sized vegan meals, even if I had to cobble them together from side dishes, the fear of never getting pleasure from food again just melted away. Willpower doesn’t keep me vegan, hummus does.

Then I thought to myself: now that I’ve struck this wonderful new balance in my life, do you know what would be fun? Let’s disrupt it all over again. I took a job as a cruise ship musician, knowing it would take me to unfamiliar places, where I would have to repeatedly seek out my own food security, just as I had done at home, and which everyone else takes for granted. And I succeeded. I was never tempted give up veganism, in fact my convictions have only grown stronger. They say you can be a vegan anywhere, but as a cruise ship employee I have literally been vegan everywhere, while poor, without access to a proper kitchen, and I can confirm that it is possible.

No, the food is not the problem. The only truly difficult thing about being a vegan is dealing with people. Be prepared to fight a constant battle against pettiness and greed, and get used to the feeling of having your options limited by the apathy of others. On ships this true tenfold. No cruise ship has any real support system in place for vegan crew members, and you have to eat dinner on the ship every night as it sets sail. There’s no place else to go. This means that you are at the mercy of the food and beverage department, who provide no default vegan options in the crew mess. I had to waste a decent portion of my paycheck on groceries just to get enough calories to get through the day, which all of my coworkers were granted as a basic right. Most ships do not allow you to bring fresh produce on board, which rules out most vegan options other than processed junk food. As my contracts lasted for months at a time, I often had to neglect my health for my paycheck.

But I was determined to make it work. On this particular Alaska cruise, where the rules regarding produce were slightly relaxed, I bought as much healthy food as I could, but I would still have to hide it under my bed during cabin inspections. On a previous ship, against policy, I smuggled on two packets of mini-boxed soy milk prior to a trans-pacific crossing, because it was the only way to ensure a reliable source of calcium.

Whenever I asked the food servers for a vegan plate, each person in the chain scratched their heads and passed the responsibility off to someone else, and sometimes there would be nothing at all. When it became clear my mental health was being affected, the higher-ranking staff eventually relented and provided me with a “vegan option”, which was to eat the one lunch and dinner item they offered, always vegetable curry, or go without help. Beans, a vegan staple, were almost nonexistent on the ship. I offered the relevant departments a short cheat sheet of vegan nutritional requirements, which nobody read, and even the ship’s doctor admitted he could not do anything to ensure that I had adequate nutrition onboard.

I tried to be as happy as I could under the circumstances. If I had to prepare my own food, I tried to make things at least as enticing and definitively healther than the ship’s options, and made a point to eat them in public, hoping to inspire confidence in others. In the absence of vegan desserts, I learned how to make cake in the microwave. I made my own smoothies. I didn’t plan on being so visible as a vegan for fear of being called strident, but when you have to fight tooth and nail for something so basic, it’s impossible to avoid drawing attention to yourself, and you’ll be labelled as strident even if you say nothing.

Most of the crew were sympathetic, but not to the point where they would risk their necks to help. Cruise ship employees are expendable labor, and if you rattle the cages, you do so knowing you can be fired within the week, with your willing replacement greeting you on the gangway on your way out. I’ve met at least two people who told me that they had been considering veganism, but caved when they realized that their only options on the ship were rice and French fries. They were right. On two occasions, I’ve joined a ship flat broke and had to survive on white rice and French fries for over a week, until my paycheck arrived.

As for the less sympathetic coworkers, well… Once during dinner, two people sitting at my table laughed about how the funniest thing in the world is the look on a vegan’s face when he realizes he’s eaten meat. “Yeah, fucking vegans,” I replied. Personally, I think the look on their faces when they noticed my plate and realized their error was pretty damn funny, but to each his own. Another time, a coworker asked me about my diet and my reasons for adopting it. He asked me, mind you. Later that night, he performed a standup routine where he mocked all vegans for being “in your face” with their veganism. And it felt like a gut-punch every time something like this happened. It felt like I was being punished for doing something right, something good. And it’s hard to take a joke on a chronically half-empty stomach.

So after avoiding Wrangell for several weeks, and with the pressure of all these things ever-present in my mind, I decided to go to the restaurant and ask, simply ask, why they deemed it necessary to choose that particular name for the burger. Why add insult to injury?

As someone who normally fears confrontation, I imagined all the possible ways the situation could play out. At best, I would get a calm, straightforward reply to my question and it would be a triumph of diplomacy. At worst, I’d get my face kicked in. I remembered the words of a vegetarian coworker of mine, about the importance of constructive dialogue. This seemed like a novel approach compared to my usual method of seducing people with microwave cake, but acceptable nonetheless.

I disembarked, walked straight to the sliding glass windows and calmly asked the lady why they chose the name for their burger.

“Because it’s funny,” she replied.

“Funny how?”

Pause.

“Yeah, this isn’t a conversation I wanna have.”

Well, I did. After all, I wasn’t picketing their place of business, I wasn’t protesting. Surely anyone willing to dish it out should be able to take it.

But she left, and sent out the owner and chef to deal with me. I asked him the same question.

“I DON’T HAVE THE TIME OR INCLINATION TO SPEAK TO YOU ABOUT THAT RIGHT NOW. IF YOU DON’T LIKE A NAME ON MY MENU, YOU CAN TAKE YOURSELF SOMEWHERE ELSE, BUT I’M NOT GONNA TRY TO MAKE YOU SEE WHETHER OR NOT I BELIEVE OR DON’T BELIEVE IF SOMETHING IS FUNNY OR NOT, BUT IF YOU CAN’T TAKE A JOKE THEN WALK OFF. GOODBYE!”

And he slammed the sliding glass door, narrowly missing my finger.

At least the worst of it was over. I sauntered off to the restaurant near the pier and ordered some fries and a Coke. I uploaded the incident, which I had been filming, to the internet, and celebrated my act of courage for the year. My thanks go out to that restaurant in Wrangell for supplying me with the necessary Wi-Fi. Only time will tell if this was a decisive victory in the Culture Wars.

I got a comment from a Facebook friend, who remarked that the two Wrangellites behaved as though I pointed a gun at them. "No one in Alaska is afraid of guns," I replied, "but some people freak out when you point a question at them."

I also mentioned my vegetarian friend, how he told me that constructive dialogue was the best way to win people over. Within the hour, that vegetarian had responded.

“Well, maybe not always…”