This Canadian explorer dove beneath the North Pole, discovered shipwrecks, and helped a Hollywood director

Joe McInnis fell in love with the undersea world during his first scuba dive at the age of 17, when he discovered a reef system in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1954.

“It’s full of these extraordinary creatures and sunlight and shadow,” McInnis explained. the currentHost Matt Galloway. “It’s another world.”

“The feeling I[had]of this connection with something ancient, mysterious and infinite has never left me.”

Now 88, McInnis has spent his entire life exploring the world’s waters, spending 6,000 hours exploring the bottom of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans. He also helped director James Cameron with research for his blockbuster film titanic,

For his pioneering contributions to marine science, MacInnis was awarded the Order of Canada in 1976.

pursuing a career underwater

Raised in Toronto, McInnis initially went to medical school, attending the University of Toronto and graduating in 1962.

But he says the sea beckoned, and he was “very lucky” to be alive during what he calls the golden age for marine science, when advances in diving science and technology were occurring at a rapid pace.

Combining his medical training with his passion for being underwater, McInnis found his way back to the ocean, and became a consultant on the US Navy’s Sealab project. The program demonstrated that humans can stay and dive underwater for long periods of time, with McInnis specializing in the health and safety of divers.

A few years later, in 1969, MacInnis returned to Canada and helped Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau draft the country’s first national ocean policy.

He also built Sublimnos, Canada’s first underwater research station at the bottom of Lake Huron, which allowed scientists to research fish habitat, water algae, sediments and currents.

Another milestone came in 1972, when MacInnis led the team that built the world’s first manned underwater station, known as a sub-igloo, in the Arctic Ocean, and became the first scientist to dive beneath the North Pole.

“I had the extraordinary sensation of turning 360 degrees, very slowly, and feeling the ocean in all directions – the Pacific in one direction, the Atlantic in the other,” McInnis said.

Through his Arctic sea expeditions, MacInnis and his team developed breathing apparatus and protective suits that allowed divers to work safely in cold waters. They also filmed narwhal, bowhead and beluga whales 965 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle for the first time.

McInnis also welcomed notable diving guests at that time, including Pierre Trudeau and King Charles, Who was the Prince of Wales at that time.

From historical wreck to Hollywood collaboration

In 1980, MacInnis led an expedition that found the wreck of the Breadalbane ship, a British merchant ship that sank beneath the ice of the Northwest Passage in 1853. The ship’s hull was found intact, with two masts still standing.

He later also made “some extraordinary descents through the crystal clear waters of Lake Superior”, where he tracked the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, a ship that had disappeared 50 years earlier, with all 29 crew members on board.

“It was a sacred place,” McInnis said. “I appreciate the technology that gets you there, but the story that’s going on has to be respected.”

He says he felt a similar honor in 1985, when he served as a consultant to the team searching for the wreck of the Titanic.

McInnis dived several times in the submersible.

He said, “Titanic had a strange organic beauty that I have never forgotten.”

Early on, McInnis became a mentor to acclaimed filmmaker James Cameron, whom he affectionately calls Jim, years before Cameron made a film that won 11 Oscars.

They first got involved when Cameron was 14 years old. Cameron visited Sublimnos on display outside the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto prior to deployment.

Soon afterwards, Cameron wrote to MacInnis requesting blueprints of the station so that he could build it himself. McInnis sent him designs.

“I never thought I’d be a filmmaker in Hollywood. I never thought I’d actually be working deep underwater, that I’d be diving as far as the Titanic.” cameroon remembered At the Royal Canadian Geographical Society event in 2023.

“But when you have that moment of empowerment – ​​someone believes in you – suddenly, a switch goes on in your brain and you believe it’s possible.”

The two have remained friends ever since and have worked together on several film and maritime expeditions, including helping Cameron reach the Titanic.

after Working with the team that created documentary film titanicaMcInnis invited Cameron to the world premiere and introduced him to the Russian submarine pilots who had participated in the dive.

Cameroon later hired the same pilots to transport him ship Before making his film in 1997 titanicWhich won him the Academy Award for Best Director.

Before making his blockbuster movie, Cameron worked 12 times sunken ship, McInnis says.

“He wanted to be exposed to the sacredness of that place and he wanted to make it possible to create a true and authentic story of the sinking from that experience.”

The lesson of adopting the invincible path

McInnis says it’s a “deeply euphoric event” to go where few have gone.

During their last dive to Titanic in 1991, McInnis and the pilot became trapped approximately four kilometers below the surface when their submersible became entangled in a telephone wire attached to the ship’s pilot house.

“My heart rate went up to three digits,” McInnis said. “About 30 minutes later, which was the longest year and a half of my life, he was able to move the sub back and we walked out into the sunlight.”

McInnis says fear can be a helpful companion. Losing his father at an early age, he says, shaped his attitude towards death, making him less afraid of it and more aware of the immediacy of life and the importance of accepting it rather than resisting fear.

Yet despite his extensive time spent at sea and his work as a physician seeing and treating sea-related injuries, he says he can only feel humbled by the sea.

“My respect for the ocean has turned me into an alpha coward with a PhD in fear,” McInnis said. “My time at sea… (is) yesI have great respect and reverence for the mother ocean.

McInnis says he wants to “continue the journey of exploration (and) discovery.”

Through projects such as a memoir and a documentary, he hopes to reflect on his “extraordinary life” and use those experiences to make a positive impact on the world.