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Jill Heinerth

From Dominique Larocque Patenaude

By | Bil Phillips | No Comments

I would just like to say that for the year I was living in Tulum, Bil has always helped me with cave tips and gave me some Canadian kindness when I felt homesick. Giving me some bungee for my never-ending changes on my sidemount setup… He was a kind man with great interests. We were not close but we had good conversations together. I loved talking music with him.

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Torngat Mountains

By | Arctic, Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Underwater Canada | No Comments

Freshwater from the river source at the base of Nachvak Fjord, floats above the colder dense sea water and freezes in a thin layer of “grease” ice that sounds like thin broken glass being swept up into a dustpan, as the hull of Ocean Endeavour carves its path. Glaciers sculpted these fjords, composed of Precambrian Gneisses that are among the oldest rocks on earth (3.9 billion years old), into eastern Canada’s highest elevations of 1,652 metres ( 5,420 ft). There are currently over 100 small mountain glaciers still carving out new terrain in this mountain park. Torngat Mountain National Park…

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Indian Harbour, Labrador

By | Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Uncategorized, Underwater Canada | No Comments

There are some places along the Labrador Coast that feel like they have remained untouched by man. Yet intrepid settlers like Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, (28 February 1865 – 9 October 1940), not only visited these far corners but also set up medical missions in this Nunatsiavut Settlement Area. His story is shared on Wikipedia: “The Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen sent Grenfell to Newfoundland in 1892 to improve the plight of coastal inhabitants and fishermen. That mission began in earnest in 1892 when he recruited two nurses and two doctors for hospitals at Indian Harbour, Newfoundland and later…

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Return to Bell Island

By | All Posts, Bell Island, Newfoundland, Sidemount Diving, Underwater Photo and Video, Women Underwater | No Comments

In 2016, I embarked on the Royal Canadian Geographical Society’s Expedition of the Year: The Hidden Geography of Newfoundland. This project documented little-known history when the Battle of the Atlantic arrived on North American shores. On two separate raids, U-boats sunk four vessels in Newfoundland waters and destroyed a loading pier for the strategic Bell Island iron ore mine. Recently, I received first-hand confirmation regarding rumors surrounding the involvement of a spy in the sinking of the vessels Saganaga and Lord Strathcona. Newfoundland resident Lloyd Walker reached out to me to describe an encounter he had as a young boy…

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