A local filmmaker and documentarian is among 15 people to be recognized with an international award from National Geographic.
Yvonne Drebert and her partner Zach Melnick live on the Saugeen Bruce Peninsula, and use underwater drones to explore the Great Lakes.
Drebert is one of the recipients of the international award.
National Geographic says, the 2026 Wayfinder Award presented by Kia is, “an honour extended annually to 15 visionaries whose outstanding achievements in science, conservation, education, technology and storytelling further the society’s mission to illuminate and protect the wonder of our world.”
“It feels pretty amazing to be honest,” says Drebert about the recognition, adding, “These other folks who have been selected are all pretty amazing in their own right, so it’s kind of crazy to be counted among this pretty awesome group of humans.”
She says, “We’ve all seen lots of really fabulous video of the oceans, whales sharks, coral reefs and these places are amazing, but we live here on the Great Lakes, on Lake Huron and so we kind of see our job as underwater filmmakers as trying to shine a spotlight on those underwater worlds that are just outside our back door and trying to bring a little more attention to the species that live just right beside us.”
Drebert explains, “We use underwater robots to film for TV and film, but we also work a lot with scientists and we film fish behaviour with our robots and so we kind of see that as a great way to contribute to our understanding of the Great Lakes and how they work, because scientists can watch our videos of animal behaviour and hopefully that tells them a little bit about how whitefish spawn or what they’re eating of how they interact with one another that can help us as humans better manage these lakes so that our native species will be here in the future.
In 2023, Drebert and Melnick found the shipwreck of the Africa in Lake Huron. It was built in 1873 and went down in 1895 during an early season snow storm. They came across it while doing a fish survey for US scientists investigating a section of lake bed.
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In their documentary on the find, they also highlighted the damage the invasive quagga mussel can do in the Great Lakes. The wreck of the Africa is covered in them. Drebert noted at the time, quagga mussels carpet the bottom of the Great Lakes in the quadrillions of animals, adding they eat the plankton other aquatic life needs to survive, and by doing so, alter the food chain. She said they not only have a significant effect on the lake, but also on shipwrecks as the mussels can pile up and become heavy enough to damage the wood and degrade the metal.
They also made a documentary called ‘All Too Clear’ about invasive mussels in the Great Lakes. Drebert says, “For us, I think as well as a lot of the folks we were working with on that, folks that had been studying the lakes for decades finally being able to see those underwater landscapes and see the quagga mussels carpeting the bottom was really an eye-opener. We got to show how these invasive mussels are changing our lakes but as part of that, we also saw how fascinated people were with seeing the animal behaviour so now we’ve started on our next show that we’re calling Hidden Below: The Great Lakes.”
Drebert explains, “It really is going to focus on all the amazing animals that are under the great lakes and not just the invasive ones this time. Really show that full picture of life under the great lakes and bring people with us to see what’s living down there.”
She adds, “That’s due to come out in the spring of 2028, but before that, you can watch live streams of their work on their web site as they go along. Last week, they shared a live stream of the deepest part of Lake Superior, called ‘Superior Maximus’ “That’s over 400 metres or 13 hundred feet deep,” says Drebert.
“We’ll be doing a number of these live streams in the next couple of years,” says Drebert.
She says, “Whenever we go out with our robots to look at what’s under the waves, we usually have a plan of something we’re hoping to see, but almost every time the lakes surprise us. We see an environment that we didn’t expect, we see an animal that we’ve never seen before and it’s just always such a thrill being able to explore and kind of discover for the first time, these environments for ourselves. It’s so magical that we get to do this day-to-day as our job and we’re so thrilled that we can now bring people along with us during the live stream so we can hopefully share a bit of that feeling about wonder of the Great Lakes and life that’s down there.”
Drebert headed to Washington D.C. this past weekend to accept the award and give a talk about her work at the National Geographic Explorers Festival.