Jill and Robert cross the Drake Passage to Antarctica onboard the expedition research vessel RCGS Resolute. RCGS Resolute RCGS Ondaatje medal for Exploration RCGS Explorer-in-Residence Jill Heinerth All music in this...
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The secret to teamwork and how Sir Ernest Shackleton inspired Jill with lessons from his epic journey to Antarctica. Following in Shackleton’s footsteps, Jill and a team of intrepid explorers...
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Jill talks about her expeditionary travel, the risks involved, and how things don’t always go as planned. At the beginning of her dive career, Jill lost her dive gear when...
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On October 25, I had the opportunity to attend and present a keynote speech at the Aqua Hacking Challenge Finals in Toronto, Canada. The event, sponsored by the de Gaspé Beaubien Foundation is in its fourth year and was presented as a part of Ontario’s Water Innovation Week. At the challenge, five finalist teams of university students competed for a chance to win $50,000 in prizes and a spot working with local incubators. So far the challenge has spawned over 60 engineering and tech-related solutions with 15 on the market or in development. The interdisciplinary student groups are paired with…
My oldest friend Dr. Jaqueline Windh and I stumble through the forest that is damp with yellow fall foliage and arrive on the cobbled bank of the Quinsam River. We’ve known each other for 50 years and still love the same things we did as kids: getting dirty and observing the natural beauty of our extraordinary world. This reunion is an opportunity to celebrate our friendship and observe the remarkable cycle of life of the various salmon species that make British Columbia their home. Beneath the glassy surface of the fast moving water, eighty or more salmon turn their heads…
It is raining hard with a 35-knot wind pouring downslope from the coastal mountains into Bute Inlet. A fresh frosting of snow dusts the peaks with the season’s first freeze. We brace ourselves in the aluminum boat which is pounding over broken waves. Most other vessels have turned back today, unable to fight the combined forces of the wind and furious tidal currents that cycle in violent whirlpools and back eddies. But we are determined to reach the traditional territory of the Homlco Xwe’malhkwu Peoples in Bute Inlet. Like other Coastal First Nation peoples, the Homalco are stewards of the…
As a professional in the industry, I am sometimes sent sample products to evaluate. Recently, OrcaTorch sent me a video light, their D900V. I picked it up at a friend’s dive shop, EPSO in Gatineau, Quebec. As local distributors for OrcaTorch, they had a full stock of the entire line of OrcaTorch products. The D900V is specifically designed for video shooters and answers a need that is unique. Years ago, I asked my electrical engineer brother if he could develop a light that offered different color temperature settings. He never came through, but OrcaTorch did. The resulting product provides four…
Carl Tremblay has the ocean in his eyes. From the moment you step onto his small aluminum cabin cruiser in Saguenay Fjord, you know this is a man who has a lot of passion for his job. “I love this place,” he says with childlike wonderment. While our captain readies the boat and goes through a quick safety briefing, Tremblay pulls out a sizeable spiral-bound book filled with photos of wildlife that he has taken. He spends a few minutes sharing each photo, carefully describing how I will find these things and how big they are. Some the size on…
The Canadian steamship Homer Warren has been sitting on the bottom of Lake Ontario for nearly one hundred years. In 2003, shipwreck enthusiasts Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville located the wrecked remains using side scan sonar equipment, but it was careful research that led them to the right location. Using newspaper accounts, witness reports and weather data, they pieced together a hypothesis about where the ship came to rest. To confirm the find, Dan Scoville made solo dives to document the wreck with his video camera. Now fifteen years later, Jill Heinerth and Teddy Garlock have brought back the first…
Making documentary films while immersed in the hostile, yet stunning waters of the Canadian Arctic, I need great technology to keep me warm and safe. The travel, dives, and image making all create their own set of unique challenges, and once you are in the north, there is no way to call up a dive shop for something you may have forgotten. I’ve spent many months in the polar region, most recently helping to create a film about climate change. Camping on the sea ice and then on a remote island outpost, I swam with polar bears, hovered below fighting…