Jennifer Obleman
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, January 9, 2008

YELLOWKNIFE - Noni Paulette has spent more than 1,000 hours underwater in the last seven years - that's enough time to watch all seven Police Academy movies 71 times in a row.

Paulette, who is commercial dive supervisor for Arctic Divers, has been a diver for seven years.

He's dived along the Arctic Coast and in countless lakes in the NWT and Nunavut.

Last year, he worked on 30 projects, spending about 70 per cent of his time on dive sites.

But the reality is only a small portion of his job actually involves time in the water.

"Being in the water is 20 per cent of the job," said Paulette. "But we’ve got 1,200 pounds of gear to pack up and haul and get set up. Patience is a pretty big part of the job."

Being underwater makes the rest of the work worth it, though.

"Once you get under a cold, cold lake, the water visibility is pretty good. You get ambient light from the surface filtering through the ice. Not very many people get to hang out at the bottom of the lake, under the ice. It’s pretty surreal," said Paulette.

On a dive, Paulette wears about 34 kilograms of gear, including a helmet that weighs almost 14 kilograms and is equipped with a lighting system and camera.

Since the dives are surface-supplied, the diver's main air source is fed through a line from the surface.

"They call that the diver’s umbilical," said Paulette.

Arctic Divers performs tasks such as salvage, dock and ship repairs, dredging, infrared camera systems, mine commissioning and environmental monitoring for government, mining and oilfield clients.

"It’s pretty unglamourous, our work, to be at the bottom of a lake turning wrenches," said Paulette.

An apprentice welder, Paulette also does underwater welding and cutting.

Another aspect of the job, particularly during fall freeze-up and spring break-up, is body recovery. Paulette estimates he has been involved in at least 10 body recovery operations in the last seven years.

"That kind of diving is just a humbling experience. It reminds you just not to take any kind of activity on the water for granted," said Paulette.

"That kind of job you need to have a greater focus or attention, knowing there’s someone on the surface that needs to find that person."

Paulette dives all year round, using the ice as a working platform for machinery and equipment in the winter.

One of the most interesting projects of his career was decommissioning the dock at the Polaris mine, working in -60 C weather and plunging into water as cold as -3 C.

"To be part of that was really special. It was a really high profile job and we were up there two months straight," said Paulette.

"Diving in the Arctic Ocean was pretty special. Scuba divers pay thousands of dollars to swim in water like that. It was crystal clear water with an abundance of sea life, from seals to stars and jellyfish, everywhere."

Paulette, who grew up in Yellowknife, studied commercial diving at B.C. Institute of Technology before coming to work at Arctic Divers with dive master Wayne Gzowski, who owned and operated the business before it was taken over by Canadian Dewatering in 2005.