Hidden Below
The Great Lakes
Community Outreach Partner
As a Community Outreach Partner for Hidden Below: The Great Lakes, we are proud to support this groundbreaking TVO Original documentary by helping connect communities with the remarkable freshwater ecosystems that sustain our region.
Hidden Below: The Great Lakes, produced by award-winning filmmakers Yvonne Drebert and Zach Melnick of Inspired Planet Productions, will reveal an unseen underwater world through the use of next-generation underwater robotics and cutting-edge filming technology. Over the next two years, the production team will document never-before-seen wildlife behaviours and underwater landscapes across the Great Lakes watershed, including the first-ever filmed coaster brook trout spawning event, deepwater sculpin nesting hundreds of metres below the surface, rare lake trout populations, and extraordinary fish migrations.
As a community outreach partner, our role is to help bring these discoveries beyond the screen and into our communities. We will work to engage residents, educators, conservation advocates, Indigenous communities, youth, and stakeholders in conversations about freshwater ecosystems, their importance to our daily lives, and the actions we can take to protect them.
Hidden Below is more than a documentary series. It is a collaborative effort involving scientists, conservation organizations, community partners, and environmental leaders across the Great Lakes region. By participating in outreach activities, educational programming, community events, and awareness campaigns, we aim to help foster a deeper understanding of the connections between healthy freshwater systems, thriving wildlife, and resilient communities.
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Freshwater ecosystems support our drinking water, local economies, recreation opportunities, and biodiversity, yet much of this world remains hidden from view. Through our partnership with Hidden Below, we are excited to help share these stories, inspire stewardship, and encourage community engagement in protecting the Great Lakes and their connected waterways for future generations.
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Together, we can help bring the hidden world beneath our waters into view and inspire action to conserve one of the world's most important freshwater ecosystems.
Live Stream
What can Lake Huron tell us about early life on Earth? Join a livestreamed exploration of one of the Great Lakes’ most extraordinary underwater environments and discover a world that resembles the Earth as it was 2.5 billion years ago.
Hidden beneath the waters of Lake Huron lies the Middle Island Sinkhole. Formed over thousands of years as groundwater dissolved the limestone beneath the lakebed, the sinkhole plunges 80 feet below the surface into a colourful ecosystem unlike anything in the Great Lakes. This rare environment attracts researchers from around the world seeking clues about early life on Earth.
Freshwater explorers and filmmakers Zach Melnick and Yvonne Drebert are teaming up with Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary and Great Lakes Now for the first-ever livestream from this underwater time capsule, providing an up-close look at an area that, until now, has only been experienced by advanced divers. Using a high-tech remotely operated vehicle (ROV) equipped with high-resolution cameras, the team will descend into the sinkhole, following divers as they collect samples from the remarkable microbial mats that carpet the bottom.
Viewers will get an up-close look at the sinkhole’s colourful bacterial communities, vast carpets splotched with shades of purple, brown, and white. Scientists believe this globally significant ecosystem can provide insights into how life evolved on early Earth and how the planet’s first oxygen-producing organisms transformed the atmosphere. While beautiful to look at, the sinkhole is deadly to most other lake lifeforms due to the water’s lack of oxygen.
Along for the journey will be Dr. Bopaiah Biddanda from Grand Valley State University, an Aquatic Microbial Ecologist who has spent years studying the sinkhole’s unique ecosystem. Sarah Morrison, Media and Outreach Specialist at Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, will share how the sanctuary supports researchers looking to uncover the secrets of the sinkhole.
Biddanda, Morrison, Melnick, and Drebert will answer audience questions in real-time during the dive.
NOTE: The date and time are subject to last-minute change due to weather conditions.