PBS to feature Kingston diving company

When diver Kenn Feigelman and his team went out onto Lake Ontario last August to test out their new side-scan sonar equipment, they stumbled across more than a few sunken British warships.

 

Their re-discovery of four shipwrecks dating back to the War of 1812 provoked a flurry of media attention focused on Feigelman, known to his colleagues as the "Old Man of the Sea" for his Hemingway-esque appearance, and his diving company, Kingston based Deep/Quest 2 Expeditions.

 

That was when PBS came calling. Feigelman now has an official contract with the network's Watertown affiliate to produce a series of 13 half-hour episodes that will follow him and his crew on their travels through international waters as they explore shipwrecks, sea animals and the marine ecosystem.

 

Over the course of the series - working title Deep/Quest - Into the Blue -Feigelman and his companions will see Greenland sharks off the coast of Quebec, whale sharks and sea turtles near Mexico, West Indian manatees around Florida, and an assortment of underwater caves, coral reefs and snorkelling tourists.

The premier episode, however, will focus on a site considerably less exotic to Kingstonians, yet possessing undeniable historical significance. Four sunken vessels Feigelman re-discovered last year, including the renowned British ship HMS Montreal, will be the focus of a show that presents Fort Henry and the Rideau Canal as key locations in the War of 1812.

 

"Don't forget, these were ships that carried cannons and lots of men and were engaged in serious naval engagements on the Great Lakes and on Lake Ontario," said Feigelman, 61, "and even though they're looking pretty sad and lonely as old, slumbering, drowned shipwrecks on the bottom, they were a very integral part of our North American history.

 

"If it wasn't for battles won and lost by these vessels in engagements with the Americans, and conversely battles won and lost by them with their vessels across the lake against the British, then the geopolitical face of North America would be a hell of a lot different than what it is today. These vessels were an integral part of discerning what would be Canada and the U. S. today."

 

Each of the four ships Feigelman rediscovered were identical, roughly 110 to 120 feet long, and hastily constructed from surrounding green wood in the Kingston area. He believed the vessels were sunk on purpose by the British navy to prevent them from falling into the hands of enemy units.

"What they would do is obviously tow them out from shore," he explained, "after they took all the goodies and stuff they didn't want them to retain.

 

"Fill them with some kind of ballast, in some cases set them on fire, let them burn to the waterline, and then of course the water would rush over and -poof - down like a ton of bricks."

 

After Feigelman re-discovered the wrecks, the burst of media coverage attracted the attention of his friend Mark Hanley, director of operations at the Kingston Economic Development Corporation (KEDCO). Hanley was impressed by how Feigelman had put the spotlight on Kingston, and suggested that Feigelman talk to his friend Thomas Hanley (no relation), president of WPBS in Watertown.

 

During the fall of 2008, Feigelman met with Thomas Hanley, who had worked in Kingston previously, and showed him underwater footage that prompted a favourable response.

"Initially we were going to do a special on the War of 1812 shipwrecks," said Feigelman, and then they learned about the other wrecks and the Marysburgh Vortex.

 

Feigelman estimates there are over 450 shipwrecks in the area between Kingston and Prince Edward County. The high incidence of sunken ships there is reminiscent of the mysterious disappearances of ships and planes in the Bermuda Triangle and has earned the area its own nickname, the Marysburgh Vortex.
"One thing led to another," said Feigelman of the meetings, "and they said, 'Let's make this into a 13-episode series.' "

 

The second episode of the PBS show will examine the Vortex in detail. But Feigelman insists there's nothing supernatural about it.
"The area is very prone to very, very severe and sudden weather changes," he said, "just because of its location and just because of the geographics of the area."

 

Feigelman described sudden bursts of fog that render a sailor blind to his surroundings. He said, it is believed that thousands of years ago a meteor containing large amounts of iron struck this part of Ontario.

 

"There's no iron mining to my knowledge close to Kingston, but ... if you have a major meteorite strike thousands of years ago and you have all this iron material embedded in the land structure, or for that matter in the lakebed, guess what's going to happen to your compasses?

 

"They go in circles, they go nuts." Broken navigation equipment shouldn't be a problem for Feigelman. For the filming of its PBS series, Deep/Quest 2 Expeditions has been outfitted with a range of high-tech equipment, ranging from high-definition cameras to two wet subs (an underwater vehicle that doesn't provide a dry environment for its occupants, allowing passengers in dive suits to go about their work more efficiently).