by Dave Martin
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 12/98) - What's in a name? Quite a bit if you're Wayne Gzowski, a long-time resident of Yellowknife and president and operations manager of Arctic Divers Ltd.

While many recognize the Gzowski surname as also belonging to his cousin Peter, famous broadcaster and all-round Canadian icon, the moniker also carries the weight of Canadian history.

"My great-grandfather was Sir Casimir Stanislaw Gzowski," recites Wayne somewhat wearily. "He was knighted by Queen Victoria. In the old days he was the campaign manager for Sir John A. Macdonald, and he built the international bridge going over the Niagara River to Buffalo, NY.

As a result it's something I'm stuck with this crazy Gzowski name. Of course Peter is my cousin, and that's another annoying thing in one way--you always have to live that down."

The famous surname is about the only thing Wayne shares with his noted cousin. Other than that, their histories and careers have little in common.

"I'm from Montreal, so I'm one of these refugees that had to leave," he says with a wink. "I was raised right in a French district so I speak and write some French, but I've lost a lot living here in the North. I was in a predominantly French neighbourhood, so I know what it's like being a third-class citizen. On the other side of the family, Peter was raised in Toronto. He went on to university, whereas I branched out and went into the Navy when I was eighteen."

Gzowski's naval service is perhaps the key to his present occupation.

"The Navy was always an interest for me," says Wayne. "My father was in the Navy. I guess I followed him. It started in Sea Cadets; that's where I got the initial spark. In those days it was the thing to be patriotic. It was the sixties, the Kennedy era. I followed that up, believe it or not, by going down to the States to become a marine. I was interested in fighting in Viet Nam. I think about that today and I shake my head. I'm a totally different person.

"I spent five years in the Navy and served on board the (H.M.C.S.) Bonaventure (Canada's last aircraft carrier). Part of the routine, instead of keeping the ship in Halifax in the winter months when it would cost thousands of dollars in fuel oil just to heat it, the ship would go off to Bermuda, Puerto Rico, the entire Caribbean."

"The first dive I ever did was in Bermuda," he says. "The ship's divers took me down about forty feet under the hull of the ship, and it just opened up a whole new world for me. From there I took a course in Shearwater, NS, and became a ship's diver. One of the reasons I got out of the Navy was because there was a huge waiting list to become a clearance diver. I never got into that.

"My background before that--I was very involved in Olympic single-blade canoe teams in Quebec. I was on the national canoeing team. So as a result I became very interested in athletics and that carried over into my Navy career. I was on the track team and swimming team and all that. Even now I still jog five kilometres every second day."

After the Navy and before becoming involved in commercial diving, Gzowski played upon his talents as an athlete to get him into business.

"From there I went into the health spa business," he continues.

The health industry is notorious for boom-and-bust cycles, and Wayne wasn't immune to the gyrations of the business. In fact, it was during a downturn in the industry that Gzowski found his path to Yellowknife.

Like hundreds, or perhaps thousands before him, Gzowski saw mining in the North as an opportunity more than an end to itself. As it turned out, mining in the North was where Gzowski met his partner and began Arctic Divers Ltd.

"My partner, George Peiper, is the very stable part of the company. Without him I probably wouldn't have a diving company. He's an ex-air force pilot with the German air force. He was a diver in Fiji, and also a miner, and that's where we met."

After forming the company in 1971, the partners continued to work elsewhere to finance the venture since diving jobs were few and far between.

The contracts they did get, in the beginning, were also unpleasant.

"Our initial surge into the area was through the R.C.M.P. We used to do we still do a lot of victim recoveries from under the ice. That's the sad thing about the job, you remember everything about the recoveries."

As the business grew, and word spread of their expertise, they went full time. After that, more lucrative and personally rewarding jobs came their way.

"We went into other areas like scientific diving and sampling for the government," says Wayne. "The nearest thing to my fifteen minutes of fame was I came this close to diving with the Prince of Wales. It was not to be, because they definitely wanted a medical doctor who was a diver. We were going to take him up to Baffin Island. But they wanted somebody more sophisticated than commercial divers."

Over the years the business has grown and the work has taken Gzowski throughout the sub- and high Arctic, and developed into a highly-specialized business that services mining companies, pipelines, various community projects and just about anyone who needs any kind of underwater or under-ice work.

"Right now," he says, "we're getting work with Diavik mines, working with engineers gathering data and putting together their final analysis for their licence."

Over the years his experiences have also spurred Gzowski into actively lobbying for better and more stringent safety regulations.

"A lot of people don't understand the dangerous conditions of diving under candle ice or spring ice. They get impatient to dive and go when it's nice and sunny. They don't understand that this stuff is melting and mixing with the salt water and the visibility goes away.

"Without safety lines they just get lost. The Territorial government lost an employee who was working under the ice. He was an older man who was doing a favour for the department of public works. We were called in to finish the job off. This has led us to try and get legislation in the Territories for safety documentation for commercial divers. We've been working on it for a long time.

"I started making noises to the government that we have to have diving safety regulations. Whenever the government is involved in any type of diving work it should be a recognized commercial diving company. Electricians are protected, carpenters, any other trade except commercial diving. It took a couple of deaths in Alberta for the push for legislation there."

Along with legislation, Gzowski fervently believes in the need for education.

"I participate quite frequently in going to schools and I talk to the children about the marine life and I show slides. I do it on a voluntary basis, and I do that in almost all the communities. Just recently I put a slide show on for all the new Armed Forces officers that have arrived in Yellowknife. I talked about not only diving, but also a briefing on Arctic waters and what we as a commercial diving outfit do. I talk about the engineering part of it, or the marine biology end of it, or underwater photography. We work quite closely with these guys and the R.C.M.P."

As well as a livelihood, diving has given Gzowski insight into the North, both in terms of the ecology and its inhabitants. It's during discussion of these topics that his passions become apparent. And when his diving days are done, it's in these areas that he sees a place for himself.

"My work has taken me away from Yellowknife so much that I get a broader picture of the Arctic. Quite often, as you know, you become involved in the politics of the community, and sometimes you say to yourself, 'maybe I could go into the political arena or something do more community-minded things.' I would like to stay in Yellowknife more and become involved in politics. I'm quite interested in the water board. Without blowing my own horn, as a layman I'm probably more knowledgeable about all the bodies of water in the Northwest Territories. But what does the water board do? They pick political appointments. One of the very best appointments, I've found, was Sonny Arden, who is a Northerner, a Metis, a trapper, and he knows all the waters. Now that makes a common sense to me, but a lot of them are political appointees."

And what of the company itself, after Gzowski hangs up his fins and takes his leave?

"The hard part of this job is working in the field, being away from family. We looking at, in the future, of gearing down and looking at the Inuit or any aboriginal group interested in training as divers so we can eventually work ourselves out of the job. We'd like to be on the board of directors, certainly, be always involved with the diving. But, it's time to change. We're toying around with that idea. We've talked one of the people with the Dogrib organization; we might have some meetings with them. We're also interested in Nunavut; we'd like to see Arctic divers with a branch in Rankin Inlet or Iqaluit where we could have trained divers there."

So, how rewarding has it been for Gzowski, this life under the ice in the frigid waters of the North?

"It led me to my introduction to the sub-Arctic. And my diving has taken me around the rest of the Arctic waters and islands. It's almost space. It's inner space. There's so much there, there's so much marine life, there's so much beauty it just takes you into a different world. This has developed over the years into a gallery of arctic underwater photography that I've published in a book and as posters. Financially, it hasn't been all that rewarding. It's given me a lively hood, but the payoff will be when we sell the company."