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Book review: Celebrating B.C.’s undersea pioneers who really made waves

Creative solutions, bruising business battles amidst life and death adventures made this province a global hot spot for undersea industries

Author Vickie Jensen served as long-time editor of Westcoast Mariner magazine as well as wrote such books as Saltwater Women at Work and Working These Waters.
Author Vickie Jensen served as long-time editor of Westcoast Mariner magazine as well as wrote such books as Saltwater Women at Work and Working These Waters. Photo by Harry Bohm

Deep, Dark and Dangerous: The Story of British Columbia’s World-Class Undersea Tech Industry

Vickie Jensen | Harbour Publishing (Madeira Park, B.C.), 2021

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$36.95 | 270pp

Vickie Jensen calls it the province’s “World Class Undersea Tech Industry.” She wants her readers to know about the deep-sea pioneers that have made this province a leader in undersea technology.

Her book sketches the careers of the men and the few exceptional women who have made this province and its surrounding waters into a global hot spot for submersible craft, high-tech diving suits and unmanned vehicles, all capable of remarkable feats of undersea exploration and resource exploitation.

It is a tale of creative improvisation and life and death adventure undersea and flamboyant business maneuvers on shore, ranging from deep sea rescues to hostile takeovers. Jensen tells her sometimes-convoluted tales with the brisk, journalistic professionalism she honed during her years as an editor of Westcoast Mariner magazine. She can also draw on the long-form skills she developed authoring books like Saltwater Women at Work and Working These Waters.

While the dream of underwater vehicles goes back a long way, with Alexander the Great cited by legend as an early user of an underwater craft and Leonardo DaVinci’s notebooks dating to 1515 containing drawings for a sub, Jensen focuses her account on B.C. and the second half of the 20th century through to the present.

And there is a lot to tell, even within those constraints. Jensen provides accounts of B.C. submarine pioneers like Al Trice, Don Sorte and Mack Thomson, the founders of International Hydrodynamics (HYCO), one of the first companies to design and build submersible vehicles in B.C. after the Second World War.

Unlike wartime subs, these vehicles were small, nimble and unarmed. HYCO was the first of many firms that built for an emerging market. Their vehicles were built for exploration, recreation and commercial applications, although, as Jensen reminds us, they attracted the attention of the world’s militaries, too.

Jensen is clearly a fan of the industry and of the women and men who created it. While noting the way that B.C.-built submersibles have served the interests of the fossil fuel industry and the military industrial complex, she is more interested in storytelling and celebration than she is in analysis of the ethical or environmental problems posed by how products of HYCO and its successors were sometime used.

But any alert reader can provide reflections on those questions. In the meantime, this is an exciting, informative book of industrial history. Well worth a read.

Tom Sandborn lives and writes in Vancouver. His only submarine experience ensued during his one ill-fated attempt to learn how to kayak. He welcomes your feedback and story tips at tos65@telus.net

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