INVESTIGATOR wreck ready for its close-up - VIDEO SURVEY

Christopher Hunter/Handout

Jim Prentice and marine archaeologist Ryan Harris examine pictures of the wreck of the HMS Investigator

The roving remote camera Little Bruce drifted drunkenly over the bow of Investigator on Thursday, recording high-definition video just centimetres from the wrecked ship’s anchor chains and upper-deck planking scratched into rubble by 155 years of passing ice.

The images were a bit shaky because of a faulty joystick but, hey, just a week ago no one figured they’d even find this historic ship, which sank in eight metres of frigid water in 1855 after three winters locked in ice. Now a Parks Canada team of marine archaeologists has set out to video every centimetre of this incredibly well-preserved wreck and potentially have it ready for Internet downloading next week.

“Operating Little Bruce is like landing an airplane when the tail rudder’s been shot off,” sighed senior marine archaeologist Ryan Harris.

With Mercy Bay cleared of ice floes by a friendly southwest wind on Thursday under an unrelenting sun with temperatures in the teens, the team was prepared to work well past what would be nightfall in southern latitudes.

Up here, the sun never gets below five degrees at the horizon, a disorienting 24 hours of sunshine that allowed me to fish unsuccessfully until 2 a.m. last night and give me a final chance to end the drought late Friday before the field unit departs today.

But I digress.

While the team had appeared glum at first by the mechanical setback, Little Bruce’s handiwork has far exceeded anyone’s expectations.

“It’s nice to have a preview viewing so they don’t see us when we get all excited,” grinned Mr. Harris, before he screened the video for Environment Minister Jim Prentice. “OK, here comes the money shot.” Sure enough, as a colleague eased the camera behind the stern ripped open by ice, rudder attachments, copper plating and even grass marks on the hull appeared on the laptop monitor.

With the bulk of the hard work over, the scientific and cultural team members working this Banks Island Bay, 1,000 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, are relaxed and starting to enjoy themselves immensely.

It may have been suggested as a joke, but when Mr. Prentice was asked whether he wanted to go snorkeling in the freezing Arctic water to check out the Investigator for himself, he jumped at it. Sporting a bloated black dry-suit but wearing a kid-in-a-candy-store smile, Prentice dropped into the freezing Arctic Ocean.

“It’s like looking into the 19th century, straight down into a museum,” said Mr. Prentice, as he bobbed beside the Zodiac, despite the leak in his suit. The next steps in the ship’s story are ensuring its continued survival because Mercy Bay, where it rests, is not within Auluvik National Park.

Mr. Prentice says he will negotiate an agreement with British authorities on the wreck (it’s technically still theirs) and see what they want to do about the three British sailors’ graves on the site.

Next up will be to pass heritage shipwreck regulations to protect all sunken vessels more than 50 years old.

The work has just begun for Parks Canada, which vows to send divers to the site next summer and perhaps engage in archaeological excavations of the land site.

“It’s far exceeded expectations,” says Western Arctic Seal Superintendent Ian Thomas. “We would have been happy to get up here and do a good survey of the cache area and at least find the ship than know where it wasn’t. Finding the ship, locating the graves and other work has made this phenomenally successful.”

The result is gratifying in light of the cost of the expedition. The cost just for the Auluvik Base Parks Canada unit is roughly $100,000, Mr. Thomas said. “Add in fuel and other transportation costs and the amount could easily double or triple.”