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Exploring Bell Island Shipwrecks with Jill Heinerth

Video:

Jill Heinerth explains her fascination with scuba diving on the Bell Island shipwrecks and in the iron mines. She is a world-famous Canadian underwater explorer and filmmaker, who keeps returning to explore the underwater world of Bell Island, Newfoundland.

Video transcript:

Bell Island is a fascinating corner of my country

Seacliffs and rocky ocean coastline. A seastack on the shoreline with a group of people.

that I knew nothing about until about three years ago,

More seacliffs. A small iceberg near a grassy shore.

and it’s an important part of Canada’s history and even our sovereignty.

High seacliffs beside a beach with houses.

Beyond that it’s unbelievably beautiful.

A woman (Jill Heinerth) speaking indoors, wearing a toque and fleece vest. Scuba diver surfacing with camera gear.

There’s remarkable shipwrecks that are not just historic significant war graves,

Scuba divers swimming beside a large underwater shipwreck, overgrown with marine life.

but they are artificial reefs that are so beautiful.

And then there’s the mine. I mean it’s the underwater explorers dream to have a mine,

A scuba diver on surface of water inside a mine. Divers swimming underwater with flashlights along flooded mine shafts.

to have shipwrecks that are colorful, and whales and icebergs.

Jill Heinerth speaking. Whale at sea slapping its tail on the water.

And I mean what else could you ask for.

Film title: Exploring Bell Island, Newfoundland, Canada.

My name is Jill Heinerth,

Jill Heinerth speaking indoors.

and I am the Explorer-in-Residence for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

Jill Heinerth in scuba diving gear on a boat. Divers jumping in water from a boat.

The shipwrecks were sunk in the fall of 1942 on two separate attacks by U-boats,

Old film of a convoy of merchant ships at sea. Sailors manning a naval gun.

thinking that it would be a good idea to disrupt the flow of the high-grade iron ore that was coming out of the Bell Island mine.

Loaded ore cars move along a railway on Bell Island.

And so they specifically targeted these ore carriers in two separate occasions.

Distant view of cargo ship near a shoreline.

Put two on the bottom each time, so it was a pretty good tactical move,

Fuzzy view of explosion at the side of a cargo ship.

but it shocked the heck out of the Bell Islanders and Canadians – North Americans!

Jill Heinerth speaking indoors.

I mean to have a direct attack on our shores was unprecedented.

Old film of Newfoundlander reading The Barrelman newspaper.

There’s all kinds of artifacts still on these wrecks from the big stuff like guns with brass plates on them,

Schools of fish and scuba diver swimming by an underwater shipwreck. A box of corroded ammunition on a shipwreck. A starfish on an old shoe on a shipwreck.

to portholes, phonograph records, you know, the personal remains left behind

Scuba diver swims by a stern gun and looks at phonograph record on a shipwreck.

And unbelievably beautiful marine life growing all over everything.

Close-up view of a sculpin (fish) and a comb jelly.

The Saganaga is a pretty interesting wreck, because as it started to sink, it broke in half, and so as the two halves kind of snapped upward,

Scuba divers and fish swimming above a shipwreck.

this huge anchor from one end of the boat gets launched

Jill Heinerth speaking indoors, gestures with arms.

and actually lands on the deck on the other end of the boat.

Anchor chain draped over the deck and cargo hold of shipwreck.

I mean these things are huge, they’re I don’t know six or seven feet high. And to imagine throwing that piece of,
you know, iron

Diver with camera swims beside large anchor lying on the deck of a shipwreck.

as far as it went and landing. It’s amazing.

Close-up of large anchor covered in urchins and anemones.

And it’s a great spot for a picture.

Diver with lights swimming beside large anchor on shipwreck deck.

The P.L.M. is probably one of the first wrecks that you’ll see when you come here because it’s the shallowest.

Scuba diver swimming passed large propeller and rudder of sunken shipwreck.

People suspected that there was some spying associated with the sinking. The captain of the P.L.M. sold his grand piano from the boat

Scuba diver swims over a shipwreck.

to a Bell Islander like the night before the sinking.

Jill Heinerth speaking indoors.

But the P.L.M. also has a pretty significant torpedo hole. If you’re down on the sea floor and you look up at this entrance wound

Scuba diver swimming through large torpedo hole in side of shipwreck.

from the torpedo – it’s amazing.

View of torpedo hole in side of shipwreck.

And then you can see on the other side of the boat where it bursts out

Jill Heinerth speaking indoors, gesturing with hands.

and bends the metal outward and it’s a pretty cool spot to see.

Diver with camera swimming through torpedo hole in shipwreck.

On the wreck of the Rose Castle, you can visit the Marconi room

Several scuba divers swim over shipwreck with masts.

and just poke your head in the door and see all the

Diver looking through doorway into Marconi room on a shipwreck.

bells, knobs and whistles and everything
that was a part of

Jill Heinerth speaking indoors, gesturing with hands.

of that intact as it was when it sunk. And when I stick my head in that door, I imagined

Views of corroding radio equipment in Marconi room of shipwreck.

there was probably a guy in there on the radio yelling for help. What a powerful thing to see!

Diver looking in door of Marconi room.

On another wreck, there’s a radio sitting right on top of the deck.

Diver with lights looking at electrical equipment on deck of a shipwreck.

And some, I think, are old batteries and electrical panels from that Marconi room.

Close-up of batteries on shipwreck.

For me, one of the most profound diving experiences I had here was diving last year on one of the wrecks and I was swimming with my buddy up to this deck gun on the Rose Castle.

Views of swimming along underwater shipwrecks.

And it’s beautiful!

Diver swimming through a companionway on a shipwreck.

If that’s a strange thing to say about a big piece of hardware for killing people. But my dive buddy was German, and there we were enjoying the sight of these incredible anemones, these pinkish anemones, like exploding at the end of the gun barrel.

Scuba diver swimming around a stern gun on a shipwreck.

And I was thinking to myself, you know, Wow! In 1942 we would have been on opposite sides of this gun. Yet here we are together enjoying this wreck. You know, how our world has changed, and how the marine environment has transformed

View of stern gun on shipwreck, overgrown with anemones.

this very sad thing into something that’s beautiful again.

Jill Heinerth speaking indoors.

These wrecks are enormous. There’s no way you can possibly, you know, dive the entire wreck on a dive and say “Oh done it, you know, what’s next?” It leaves you wanting to go back again and again and again, to see the rest of the wreck. Like let’s do the bow today, let’s do the stern today, or let’s just do the superstructure. Or let’s go inside and have a look around at some of the artifacts.

Views of several scuba divers swimming over large shipwrecks covered in marine life.

I’ve been coming here for three years and I feel like I’ve only barely scratched the surface. There’s so much to see and do on each individual one, they’re enormous.

Scuba divers exploring large shipwrecks.

The Bell Island mine ceased the end of its operations 50 years ago. Literally people went home for the Christmas holidays and the

Old film of miners drilling into rock underground.

you know operators of the mine decided it’s getting too expensive to continue to mine this ore from these great depths, some 1,800 feet deep inside the mine.

Miners operating a train of ore cars in a mine tunnel. An ore car rolling over to unload.

And they turned off the dewatering pumps and over the course of a couple days the mine filled back up with water.

Abandoned mine buildings on Bell Island.

And it was a huge economic shock to the community. And you wonder what the future of Bell Island is.

View of houses on Bell Island through a chain-link fence.

Well, the future of Bell Island is tourism.

Jill Heinerth speaking indoors.

It’s embracing the natural beauty that they have around them. You know, celebrating these shipwrecks and the mine as, you know, a place of national historic significance.

Group of visitors on a tour of the Bell Island iron mines.

The mine is now going to be open to cave divers who are qualified to explore its depths,

Scuba diver on surface of water inside the flooded Bell Island mine.

Because there is no warning in terms of flooding the mine, it’s full of artifacts. So it’s industrial archaeology. You can follow the pipes and the pumps and the personal artifacts of the miners.

Scuba diver swims along flooded mine shaft, looking at mining pipes and equipment lying on the bottom.

And you can see crosses on the wall where men died at work. I mean 106 men died in the Bell Island mines.

Diver swims in mine shaft, using a flashlight to look at writing on the wall.

It’s an incredible asset, beyond the natural beauty of this place.

Jill Heinerth speaking indoors.

There’s also some old mine entrances at a place called the Grebe’s Nest.

Group of people walk along a dirt road. View of iceberg near the shore.

It’s a pretty cool little kind of cave exploration that you can do there because there’s multiple openings and skylights and tunnels.

People explore the start of old mine tunnels leading underground.

And within those tunnels, you’ll see tunnels that are completely
collapsed. Which kind of gives you the sobering reminder that this activity is a little bit dangerous.

People in hard hats explore dark mine tunnels with flashlights.

And sometimes from beneath these collapses you’ll see the rail tracks of the ore carts, and other artifacts like sticking out from
the rock piles.

People step over railway tracks on the floor of old mine tunnels.

This year on my visits to Newfoundland I’ve been flying the flag of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

Jill Heinerth speaking indoors. Logo of Royal Canadian Geographic Society.

This has been deemed their expedition of the year, which is pretty exciting.

Group of people gather around the flag of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society for a photo.

When I speak with people at the Royal Canadian, they’re very excited because they feel like often Newfoundland is left out of you know, Canada’s history and geography and Newfoundland is you know a recent addition to Canada.

Same group of people sitting at a table listening to Jill Heinerth.

Several views of scuba divers swimming over large shipwrecks.

You come here a stranger and you leave as family.

Scuba divers hugging and laughing on a dive boat.

All the people in Newfoundland are like people you’ve never met before and they will become family. It’s a special place.

Jill Heinerth speaking indoors.

Logo of Seaproof.tv

End credits:

Underwater Bell Island Mine footage: Jill Heinerth

Archive footage: Memorial University of Newfoundland – Digital Archives Initiative

Dive operation: Ocean Quest Adventure Resort