When it comes to scuba diving there are not many things Nath Lasselin hasn’t done. What she has done is so challenging many divers would not try it.
One of her pursuits is ice diving in the Arctic. This involves cutting a hole in the ice through a thickness of three to five feet. That gives her access to the under-ice world of the Arctic, including swimming under icebergs.
She has also dived under the earth’s surface. Then there is cave diving in China. This is much more challenging than cave diving in North America. Like the country itself, China’s caves are huge. “You can’t see all the walls around you. The closest lifeline is about all you can see. The second thing is that they are really deep — more than 500 feet. “This not like Florida where caves are 60 feet. In China it is more about exploration instead of recreation.” It is the domain of technical divers.
When Lasselin began diving her motive was simply to see under the surface of the water. She soon moved on to diving under the ground and ice diving.
As a film maker, her main challenge in caves is the lack of light. “The visibility inside China’s caves is not great.” Among her films are three on cave diving. She also made films on the Yucatan Peninsula. “My job is to work as a director.”
In Yucatan Peninsula her main project for the following year is to document the river “so we can live in harmony with fresh water. We want to be sure the relationship with fresh water is sustainable and to determine how we can we make it better.
“For me diving is not something just to do.. I dive with a purpose. It has been like that since the beginning of my diving career. I dedicate my life to that.” In giving a lecture she stresses how vulnerable the quality of our life is.
Lasselin invites people to use her Facebook to tell their own stories about protecting the Earth. She lives in Montreal and is a award-winning underwater photographer, public speaker and diver.
