Telling Our Stories Speaker Series presents Ian Tamblyn

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In the winter of 1984, I received a letter from an American marine  biologist who I had never met. The letter read” Hey, Tamblyn, Science  Needs you in the Chukchi Sea. Get your diver’s licence and join us in  Nome on July 7th for a month study of the feeding habits of Gray Whales and walrus.”

I  burst out laughing when I read this letter but it not a joke. It was an  offer that changed the course of my life. I spent that winter in a  suburban Ottawa pool and I got my PADI open water certificate diving the  murky waters of the St. Lawrence on July 4th. Six days later I made my first Arctic dive at King Island, in the middle of the Bering Strait.

The  scientist who made the offer was Dr. John Oliver from the Marine Lab at  Moss Landing, California. He had seen me play the previous summer at  the marine station at Bamfield, B.C. He wanted me to be the artist in  residence on the expedition, believing firmly in a multi discipline  approach to his work. As he said, “Tamblyn, we’re benthic scientists,  we’ve got our heads in the mud or eyes down a microscope, I am  interested in your observational eyes to take in the big picture from  another perspective.”  He was the first scientist besides Richard  Feynman I had ever heard take this approach and since that time there  have been few since.

The adventure in the Bering Strait and  the Chukchi Sea led to several other expeditions with the “benthic  bubs”, culminating with a month of diving under the ice of McMurdo  Sound, Antarctica. It also led to the creation of two albums, a Juno  nomination, a play and a two-part series called “Notes from the Bottom  of the World” that aired on CBC’s “Ideas” series with host, Lester  Sinclair.

That first expedition opened the door to several  other adventures as well, including 27 years guiding and driving zodiacs  in the Arctic, Antarctic and other remote parts of the world.

Say “YES!” to adventure.