Canadian journalist and novelist Bob Hunter was one of the most important figures during the early years of Greenpeace. He was involved in the first voyage aboard the Phyllis Cormack to protest against a 1971 underground nuclear bomb test beneath Alaska's Amchitka Island. His passion for the cause, his skill with words and his ability to mediate among warring philosophies within the early Greenpeace, propelled him into the leadership role he held throughout the group's first decade. In the year 2000, Time magazine named him one of the ten eco heroes of the previous century for his role as a pioneer in ecological activism and as a co-founder of Greenpeace.