A unique documentary showcasing the depths of the Great Lakes will premiere at the Stockey Centre in Parry Sound on Saturday.
All To Clear: Beneath the Surface of the Great Lakes was filmed by husband-and-wife team Zach Melnick and Yvonne Drebert using cutting-edge underwater drones.
Drebert says the pair spent more than 150 days filming and would use the drones to film underwater for up to 12 hours at a time.
“What that does it is lets animals get used to us while we are down there… because of that we captured some pretty amazing footage.”
The documentary features footage of schooling behaviors of fish in the Great Lakes and the first-know recording of lake whitefish spawning.
“This is something scientists had never seen before because it happens in late November, early December out in the middle of the lake and it happens at night,” said Melnick. “We saw these two fish come together and do this vertical dance and that was really exciting.”
In June 2023, Melnick and Drebert discovered the wreck of the steamship Africa, lost to the depths in 1895, and now encrusted in quagga mussels. This garnered international attention and helped to further fund the documentary.
“Finding the Africa really helped further our main goal as filmmakers – to bring freshwater species and ecosystems into the spotlight usually reserved for ocean environments,” said Drebert. “If we want people to care about the future of the lakes, we need to show them what’s down there.”
The documentary highlights quagga mussels and the extensive impact they are having on the Great Lakes ecosystem. The rapid advancements of this invasive species, which has led to huge changes in the Great Lakes, is what launched the project, according to Melnick.
“The first time we heard about the huge changes that the quagga mussels were having upon the Great Lakes was when we were working on a project about the Georgian Bay Biosphere Reserve. The organization Georgian Bay Forever was really starting to tell this story about the ecological changes happening way out there in the middle of Georgian Bay and we got really intrigued.”
The documentary will premiere on Aug. 10 at 7 p.m. at the Stockey Centre.
