The Odyssey of Captain Healy
Documentary (56 min.)

The Odyssey of Captain Healy profiles the life of an extraordinary African-American, whose "word is law, his powers autocratic..." he is "Ruler of the Arctic Sea" wrote the Chicago Tribune in the 1890´s.  As captain on the US Cutter Bear, Captain Mike Healy stood for law and order along a 30,000 mile coast line of the Alaskan territory. Yet, no one really knew this man, or where he came from.

Born a slave in Georgia with a black mother and Irish slave-owning father, Healy ran away to sea at 15 and worked on merchant ships. There he passed as white and hid his identity. In an era of segregation, he rose to position of captain in the precursor to the US Coast Guard, a rank no black man could attain. He apprehended rum-runners, poachers and other law breakers, was notorious for running a very tight ship, and punished mutineers and criminals severely. Yet he was also famous for helping native people. When seals were hunted by whites to a dangerously low level, he organized multiple shipments of reindeer from Siberia to help the Eskimo people fight off starvation. He was a hero and nationally famous figure.

But, by 1896, Captain Healy stood before a US Court Martial. The public was stunned by the charges against him, and he was sick with alcoholism. The Odyssey of Captain Healy examines mike Healy´s remarkable life, his rise and tragic fall, in a turbulent era of US history.