Panama
Casualties of the Canal
I’ve always unimaginatively associated Panama with two things: hats and the canal. And while I love wearing the eponymous hats (which I learned actually originated and are woven in Ecuador, oops), the canal has remained little more than a line or two from a history book; an answer to a trivia question; or a terrific palindrome. [Reads the same forward and backward! “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama”] However, when I flew over the canal and saw the expanse of it from the plane’s window on my way to Colombia last year, I was in awe.
Some people’s bucket list is topped by transiting the Panama Canal via ship. In preparation, to learn about the history and engineering, I attended a couple lectures, the first of which began with the following fact: 30,000+ people died building the canal. [Pardon me] HOLY SHIT. This wonder of the modern world, critical to commerce, economies, militaries, trade, and travel, was constructed through human sacrifice. It’s almost unfathomable that millennia after the building of the pyramids and some of the other ancient wonders, workers were still expendable assets in this pursuit of grandeur.
During the first attempt to carve out the canal in the late 1800s, France completely failed, losing 25,000 workers to mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and yellow fever, as well as construction accidents. The United States then swooped in — promising they’d do it differently — and completed the project in the early 1900s. During this period, an additional 5,500 people were killed (likely an underestimate, and not including those injured).
Yes, it was a feat. And yes, Teddy Roosevelt stands out as one of our all-time favorite presidents. But I just can’t help thinking how industry, power, and national pride so often come at the expense of the humanity. The history books and our collective memory seem to heroize the central figures, like Teddy, while glossing over the true toll of “success.”
I certainly enjoyed my experience transiting the canal, as well as the day before when I toured the man-made Gatun Lake in the middle of the canal — much of it now a nature preserve — encountering Capuchin, Howler, and Cotton-Top Tamarin monkeys (as well as a crocodile and a sloth!) While going through the final locks, even the ship’s captain, who hands over control during transit to a Panamanian pilot, was excitedly filming on his iPhone.
But with no memorial to fallen canal workers to visit, under the same scorching sun they endured 100 years ago, I simply tried to appreciate their courage and efforts to literally change the face of our planet.
