A man, a plan, a canal, Panama

Electric Mule at Gatun Locks, Panama Canal 1962. Photo / Peter Cape

1962PCGatunLocks.JPG Electric Mule at Gatun Locks, Panama Canal 1962. Photo / Peter Cape A man, a plan, a canal, Panama By Christopher Cape

"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely — great men are almost always bad men." Attributed to one John Dalberg – Acton eighth Baronet, liberal MP for Bridgenorth, historian and politician, this is an ancient axiom oft quoted by those who can't get it or don't have it. As the globe is stirred by electoral tides of dissent and America is leading the world in the Covid-19 count, Trump and Biden "trade insults while Rome burns" (at least Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome was sacked) and I tend to say "so what's new?"

It was the same in 1962 when the Cape family travelled to the UK on board the Royal Dutch Mail Netherland Line's MS Oranje. The Cuban Missile Crisis was unfolding. My father, Peter Cape, was a television producer with the fledgling WNTV1 in the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation. We were travelling to London where he would train in new production techniques with the BBC. Having left Wellington in late March, the Oranje had called at Pape'ete in Tahiti and Balboa in Panama. We were now to navigate the Panama Canal.

Perhaps Mr Dalberg was right about politics. Panama itself dates back to 1501 when it was discovered by Spaniard Rodrigo de Bastidas. Panama, the settlement, was founded by Vasco Nunez de Balboa who, after trekking from the Atlantic coast, was the first European to sight the Pacific coastline. Gold, silver, trade and exploitation saw the back route carry riches to the King of Spain from Peru.

Over the years, skulduggery ensued when one Pedro Aria de Avila (also known as Pedarias Davila) on the king's command was given governorship of Panama. Pedarias Davila had Balboa arrested on a trumped-up charge. Balboa was decapitated along with four others. Davila developed a devilishly dominant and blood-chilling reputation, somewhat living up to his name.

Spain dominated the area for three centuries in commerce and Catholicism as the route from west to east was established. Eventually, in 1881 the French began development of the Panama Canal but tropical diseases and atrocious working conditions devastated and halted progress until the Americans took over in 1903/04.

The canal was finally opened on August 15, 1914, 400 years after Balboa discovered the possibility of the crossing. By the time we passed through, in 1962, the route was well established but political turmoil was still simmering. The channel pilot vessel in one of my father's slides is flying the American stars and stripes. The Panama Canal was a corridor still under American control. The 1956 Suez crisis was recent history and the Panamanian Government wanted ownership of its canal. America enforced its authority by erecting boundary fences (where have I heard that before?) and bringing in the military. Conflict on January 9, 1964, Martyrs Day, saw five American servicemen and 20 Panamanians killed. Such was the backdrop of my recollection but in 1962 I was 8.

As we negotiated the Miroflores locks, completed in 1913, I was fascinated by the activity of linesmen and the electric mules – small, grey railway engines with a cotton-reel style capstan amidships and a driver's cabin on each end. In the 21st century, size has increased and such character has been lost. The mules that were mongooses have become hippopotamuses. Modest freighters have become multi-storey container ships.

The Miroflores Locks and the Miroflores lake were followed by the Pedro Miguel Locks and the Culebra Cut. Beyond that, Gatun Lake stretched before us through wide, placid waters. Somewhere on Gatun Lake we overtook a shabby freighter we had seen at anchor in Balboa. The jungle rose dark-green and dense from the water's edge, a mix of palm and broadleaf wherever I looked. The air hung warm and still. There was a huge dredge operating in what must have been the Culebra Cut. One photo depicts a white, boxlike, two-storeyed, floating office block with a towering, smoking funnel, at the front of which stood a gargantuan rusted iron shovel about the size of a small car supported by a massive rugby goalpost. Beside this, a huge barge laden with rubble and rocks was tethered. Victorian industrialism was alive and well. That pilot vessel was in attendance too. Progress seemingly never stops. The Culebra (or Gaillard) Cut is a 12km manmade channel through the Panama Continental Divide. The sides of the "Ditch" (as my father labelled it) were, at times, barely 50 metres from the Oranje on each flank. The waterway broadened out in places and Gatun Lake seemed expansive.

I recall thinking of crocodiles and alligators lurking in the shadows, though I don't recall actually seeing any. There was, however, evidence of human habitation, even in this seemingly isolated interior. A wooden hut on a tiny knob of an island occupied a spot on Gatun Lake's perimeter on the edge of dense jungle. The Gatun Lake is some 27m above sea level and the Gatun Locks dropped us back to sea level.

Proceeding northwest we passed through the port of Colon and Cristobal Harbour into the Caribbean Sea. The Atlantic Ocean lay in the distance but Florida, USA, was to be our next port of call.