The research vessel, Blue Heron, left Duluth this morning, steaming towards a once in a lifetime underwater research opportunity in Lake Superior. “It’s this really unique environment. It’s basically this, like Underwater Everest. That’s what we’ve been calling it anyway,” said lead researcher, Lakehead University Associate Professor, Michael Rennie. Covering 11 square kilometres and rising more than 300 metres off the lakebed, the Superior Shoal is the focus of a North American research mission currently underway. Along for the ride, to document it all, is a pair of Bruce County filmmakers. “There’s a whole bunch of species that have never been on camera before alive that are right here in the Great Lakes, and a bunch of them live in those deep waters around the Superior Shoal,” said Bruce County filmmaker, Zach Melnick. Melnick and his partner, Yvonne Drebert have been exploring the largely undiscovered world of the Great Lakes for the past several years, with their underwater robotic camera. In 2023, while shooting a documentary about invasive mussels, they discovered the 1895 shipwreck, the “Africa” in Lake Huron. “We’ve all seen amazing footage of oceans and sharks and whales, but for the 40 million of us or so who live on the shores of the Great Lakes, there’s a whole underwater world out there that we’ve barely seen. And now we have this new robot technology that lets us spend, you know, up to 12 hours at a time underwater, exploring these environments, seeing these fish. And it’s actually a pretty amazing environment out there, just right outside our door,” said Derbert. The 9 day mission will focus on what role the “Superior Shoal” plays in the extensive Great Lakes ecosystem. “We’ve been doing a lot of work to try and understand how these things work and the role that it plays in supporting the broader, large lake ecosystem. And in Lake Superior seems to be really important to these parts. Lots of high productivity for fish and other organisms,” said Professor Rennie. Derbert and Melnick will be taking viewers along for the ride, hosting a livestream this Sunday of the undiscovered, underwater world. “So there are big underwater mountains in the ocean, and they collect life. They’re hotspots of biodiversity. And we think that that might also happen in freshwater. But nobody’s ever looked at it before. So that’s why we’re heading out to the Superior Shoal, the biggest one in the world to check that out,” said Derbert. You can follow the Superior Shoal livestream by visiting Inspired Planet Productions – Filmmakers & Freshwater Explorers.
