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Joseph B. MacInnis | |
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| Born | Joseph Beverly MacInnis (1937-03-02)2 March 1937 (age 88) Barrie, Ontario, Canada |
| Education | University of Toronto |
| Occupations |
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| Awards | Order of Canada |
Joseph Beverly MacInnisCM (born 2 March 1937) is a Canadian physician, author, and diver.[1] In 1974, MacInnis was the first scientist to dive in the near-freezing waters beneath theNorth Pole.[2] In 1976 he became a member of theOrder of Canada.[3][4]
MacInnis currently studies leadership in high risk environments and gives leadership presentations in North America and Europe. His audiences have included Microsoft, IBM, National Geographic, Rolex, Visa, Toyota and the U.S. Naval Academy.
MacInnis led ten research expeditions under theArctic Ocean. He was among the first people to dive to thewreck of the RMSTitanic. In 2012 he was a medical advisor and journalist on theJames Cameron-National Geographic seven-mile science dive into theMariana Trench.
MacInnis has worked with theU.S. Navy, theCanadian Forces and theRussian Academy of Sciences. He has written ten books. His latest,Deep Leadership: Essential Insights from High Risk Environments, was published by Random House.
MacInnis is ofIsle of Mull Scottish descent.[2] He was born inBarrie, Ontario, but grew up inToronto, where his family moved after his father, aRoyal Canadian Air Force instructor, died in a plane crash when MacInnis was a few months old.[2][5] MacInnis was raised by his mother, who remarried when he was 12.[5] He attended high school atUpper Canada College.[2]
MacInnis first learned toscuba dive in 1954 in the waters offFlorida.[6][7] He attended theUniversity of Toronto, where he was the captain of theswim team in the mid-1950s. While at the university, he joined Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity. MacInnis held the Canadian record for thebreaststroke and tried unsuccessfully to make the CanadianOlympic team in1956.[2][5] MacInnis received hisMD from the University of Toronto in 1962.[1][5][8] He spent hisinternship at theToronto General Hospital,[1][6] where an experience with a tunnel construction worker suffering fromdecompression sickness helped to point MacInnis toward his post-graduate studies indiving medicine. MacInnis arranged for the worker, John McGean, to be transported to a pressure chamber inBuffalo, New York, where he was successfully treated.[6] MacInnis also interned at theHospital for Sick Children inToronto, Ontario.[9]
After his junior internship, MacInnis hoped to work with inventor and entrepreneurEdwin Link in the field of deep diving, but had no idea how to reach him. In fall 1963 MacInnis placed a person-to-person telephone call to Link, who agreed to meet with him for fifteen minutes the next day at theNavy Yard inWashington, D.C. At the interview, Link offered MacInnis a position as the full-time doctor for his Man-In-Sea Project.[6][8] MacInnis received a Link Foundation Fellowship to study diving medicine underChristian J. Lambertsen at theUniversity of Pennsylvania.[6][8][10] In 1964, MacInnis became medical director of Man-In-Sea.[6][8] During his studies at the University of Pennsylvania, MacInnis was a member of aCanadian Broadcasting Corporation filming expedition toCocos Island, where a group oftreasure hunters were seeking the fabled hoard of Benito Bonito and theTreasure of Lima.[6]
In June–July 1964, MacInnis participated as alife support specialist when Link conducted his second Man in Sea experiment in theBerry Islands (a chain in theBahamas) withRobert Sténuit andJon Lindbergh, one of the sons ofCharles Lindbergh. Sténuit and Lindbergh stayed in Link's SPIDhabitat (Submersible, Portable, Inflatable Dwelling) for 49 hours underwater at a depth of 432 feet, breathing a helium-oxygen mixture.[6][10][11][12] The dive was successful, although MacInnis made a potentially grave error by placing a cover without a pressure-equalizing valve on a carbon dioxide-filtering device.[6]
In 1965, MacInnis became medical director of Link's new company,Ocean Systems Inc.[8] His activities that year included a simulated 650-foot dive in a laboratory pressure chamber[6] and winning a Gold Medal of Excellence at theInternational Film Festival inSanta Monica for his film,Deep Androsia.[1]
In March 1967, Link launchedDeep Diver, the first smallsubmersible designed for lockout diving, allowing divers to leave and enter the craft while underwater.[10]Deep Diver carried out many scientific missions in 1967 and 1968, including a 430-foot lockout dive in 1967 (at the same location as the 1964 Sténuit-Lindbergh dive) and a 700-foot lockout dive nearGreat Stirrup Cay in 1968. MacInnis participated in both of these dives as an observer inDeep Diver's forward chamber.[6][10][13]
In September 1967 MacInnis took part in a classified Ocean Systems mission aboardDeep Diver on theGrand Banks south ofNewfoundland. A cable plow, rumored to be used for burying a strategic communications cable, had been lost in 400 feet of water. Two Navy divers had already been killed trying to recover it. MacInnis was one of a crew of four Ocean Systems personnel who unsuccessfully attempted to recover the cable plow using the submersible. The mission was called off due to rising winds, andDeep Diver was barely brought safely back aboard theCanadian Coast Guard vesselCCGSJohn Cabot.[6][10] In 1968 MacInnis took part in asaturation dive aboard theHydrolab underwater habitat with two otheraquanauts, spending 50 hours at a depth of 50 feet,[14] and in the search for the lost submarineUSSScorpion.[15] In late 1968 and early 1969, MacInnis took part in salvage operations after the crash ofPan Am Flight 217 nearCaracas,Venezuela.[2][6]
In 1969 MacInnis served as a medical consultant on theU.S. Navy'sSEALAB III project,[1][8] and was on site the day after the death of aquanautBerry L. Cannon.[clarification needed][7] MacInnis designed and builtSublimnos, the first Canadianunderwater habitat,[16] which was placed inGeorgian Bay nearTobermory, Ontario, in June 1969.[17][18]Sublimnos had an "open hatch" policy, allowing access to any diver with a legitimate reason to use the habitat. In July 1969 MacInnis attended theApollo 11 launch atCape Kennedy, then traveled to Tobermory, where he dived toSublimnos and looked up through the water at theMoon at the very moment theastronauts were walking on it.[17]
MacInnis first metPierre Trudeau, thePrime Minister of Canada, in late 1969. Trudeau and MacInnis would make approximately fifty dives together over the years.[19] In 1970 Trudeau asked MacInnis to help write Canada's first national ocean policy. MacInnis began a series of ten research expeditions to study techniques for working under theArctic Ocean.[8] Also in 1970, MacInnis founded the James Allister MacInnis Foundation for underwater research and education in Canada.[20] In March 1971 MacInnis was a member of a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation crew filmingHarp seals in theGulf of St. Lawrence. Author and conservationistFarley Mowat was another member of the expedition. Mowat also helped encourage MacInnis to write.[6] Also in 1971, MacInnis helped oversee the successfuldecompression of Ocean Systems diver Bill Maltman after he was fouled in wreckage while taking part in salvage operations in the wake of thecrash of aB-52 intoLake Michigan.[6] The same year, MacInnis publishedUnderwater Images, a book ofpoetry accompanied by photographs of undersea life taken by MacInnis.[21]
In 1972, MacInnis led the team that constructedSub-Igloo, the first manned underwater station in the Arctic Ocean. MacInnis took part in a telephone call fromSub-Igloo to Prime Minister Trudeau inOttawa, Ontario.[22] MacInnis visited theSoviet Union for the first time in autumn 1973 as part of a scientific exchange program, and showed a short film about his underwater polar research inMoscow andLeningrad.[23] In 1974, MacInnis was the first scientist to dive beneath theNorth Pole.[2][6][8] By 1975, MacInnis had taken part in more than 100 major dives and expeditions.[6] In that year, he escortedCharles, Prince of Wales, on a dive under Arctic ice atResolute Bay.[2][20] Also in 1975, the MacInnis Foundation donatedSublimnos toSeneca College of Applied Arts and Technology, where it was installed in Lake Seneca at theKing City, Ontario, campus.[24][25]
MacInnis was awarded theOrder of Canada on 14 January 1976 and was invested on 7 April 1976.[3][4] In 1979, he was accompanied on a dive beneath the North Pole byEdward Schreyer, theGovernor General of Canada.[2]
While diving in 1975, MacInnis found a fragment of theBreadalbane, the northernmost known shipwreck in the world, a Britishmerchant ship that sank in theArctic in 1853. MacInnis headed the first expedition to find the wreck ofBreadalbane in August 1978. In August 1980, after a three-year search, the ship was discovered by Coast Guard cutterJohn A. Macdonald using side-scan sonar. The first images showed her hull intact and two of her masts still standing.[26][27][28]
In 1981, supported by the Canadian Coast Guard, theNational Geographic Society, and others, the group returned. A remotely piloted submersible was used to examine the wreck, which took the first colour photographs and video footage. The images showed the bow, masts, rudder and anchor. The wood appeared new.[28]
In 1983, further visits to theBreadalbane were conducted bySea-Otter, a submersible, and theWASP, anatmospheric diving suit similar to theNewtsuit.[28][29]
In 1985, MacInnis was an adviser to the team that discovered thewreck of the RMSTitanic.[1][8] Between 1985 and 1991 MacInnis made dives in the RussianMIRs research submersibles and the French submersibleNautile,[8] including his first visit to theTitanic in a submersible, in 1987 aboard theNautile, and a descent 16,400 feet into King's Trough in the easternNorth Atlantic aboardMir 1 withNational Geographic photographerEmory Kristof and Russian explorerAnatoly Sagalevich.[23] In 1991, he co-led with Sagalevitch the expedition to theTitanic which made theIMAX filmTitanica, on which he served as co-executive producer.[1][2][23] On this occasion MacInnis dove to theTitanic's bridge deck.[2][23]
In July 1994, MacInnis organized and led six publicly funded dives to theSS Edmund Fitzgerald over a three-day period.Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution provided theEdwin A. Link as the support vessel, and their manned submersible, theCelia.[30][31] TheGreat Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society (GLSHS) paid $10,000 for three of its members to each join a dive and take still pictures.[32] MacInnis concluded that the notes and video obtained during the dives did not provide an explanation of why theFitzgerald sank.[33] MacInnis helped organize another series of dives in July 1995 to salvage the bell from theFitzgerald.[31][34] Canadian engineerPhil Nuytten'satmospheric diving suit, theNewtsuit, was used to retrieve the bell from the ship, replace it with a replica, and put a beer can in theFitzgerald's pilothouse.[31][35] At MacInnis' suggestion, the replica bell was inscribed with the names of theFitzgerald's crew.[31]
From 1996 to 2004 MacInnis was the chair ofTD Financial Group's Friends of the Environment Foundation.[8] In October 2001, MacInnis visited the exterior of theAquariusunderwater laboratory nearKey Largo during the first of theNASA/NOAANEEMO missions there. He shook hands underwater with Canadian astronaut/aquanautDafydd Williams.[36]
In 2003, MacInnis accompanied filmmakerJames Cameron on theDisney-IMAX expedition to theAtlantic andPacific Oceans which resulted in the 3-D film,Aliens of the Deep.[8] MacInnis' companion book to the film,James Cameron's Aliens of the Deep, was published in 2004.[7] In 2005, MacInnis joined Cameron'sDiscovery Channel expedition which explored the last unseen rooms insideTitanic and broadcast live television pictures from the wreck.[8] In March 2012, MacInnis served as expedition physician for Cameron's solo dive to the bottom of theMariana Trench in theDeepsea Challenger submersible.[37][38]
As part of his ongoing research into leadership in life-threatening environments, in 2010 MacInnis spent time with members of theCanadian Armed Forces in order to research military leadership. This included a visit to Canadian forces inKandahar,Afghanistan.[8]
MacInnis has received sixhonorary degrees, the Queen's Anniversary Medal and the Admiral's Medal.[8][39] In 2008, he received the degree ofDoctor of Science,honoris causa, fromLakehead University.[40] MacInnis is aMember of thePierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.[41]
MacInnis is the president of Undersea Research Ltd., a consulting company which he founded in Toronto in 1968.[1][2][20] He is the creator ofWisdom Keepers, a video series featuring interviews with older people of accomplishment in various fields.[8][42] He has written for such publications asNational Geographic,Wired andScientific American. He makes frequentmotivational speeches toFortune 500 companies.[8]
MacInnis is a jazz aficionado.[25] He has counted many astronauts and aquanauts among his personal friends.[17] His son, Jeff MacInnis (born in 1963), has led a sailing expedition through theNorthwest Passage.[1][43] As of 1965, MacInnis lived near theTown of Port Credit, in what is nowMississauga.[44]
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