1000 Islands Unforgettable Experience for Fresh Water Divers

First-of-its-Kind Dive Explores Shipwrecks to Submerged Villages Beneath the Ice

The 1000 Islands in Canada’s St. Lawrence Seaway is without question the world's best fresh water ship wreck diving site. Below the icy surface lie entire lost villages, immaculately preserved shipwrecked schooners of all description beckoning adventurous divers. A Canadian exploration company is now offering a world-premiere opportunity to explore this Arctic Kingdom in the world's best and most pristine fresh water dive location.

“The wide variety of ice conditions that the St. Lawrence provides is second to none outside of the arctic” says Graham Dickson, Master Instructor and founder of Arctic Kingdom Expeditions.

Never before have these pristine fresh water wrecks been dived on in the winter months when the water visibility is at its best.

“We've been planning this ice dive adventure in the St. Lawrence for many years and are very excited to see it become a reality,” Dickson says.

Ice Diving by Airboat
As it is a flowing river with open water flowing between areas where the ice is solid, neither snowmobiles nor traditional boats could safely access the area.

Enter ice diving from an airboat – a vehicle that can travel both above the ice and through the water undeterred. This offers unprecedented access to the best freshwater wrecks at the time of year when visibility is at its best.

1000 Islands
Located along the eastern stretch of the St. Lawrence Seaway System, the 1000 Island region is the gateway of exploration and commerce from the Atlantic to Lake Superior. Nearly four thousand kilometers long, the seaway is the longest inland waterway at in the world

St. Lawrence’s Chilled Wrecking Yard
The history of the St. Lawrence is preserved in its chilly depths providing vast opportunities for exploration below the ice.

Since the first explorers arrived from England and France, over 400 years ago, the St. Lawrence has claimed hundreds of schooners, barges, paddle wheelers and freight carriers.

“The ultimate highlight for divers is to conduct ice dives on shipwrecks such as iron-hulled freighters to wooden-hulled windjammers to paddle wheel steamers. Their preservation is short of spectacular with examples of wooden schooners from the 1800's with rigging still hanging from masts,” says Dickson.

“The combination of the best wreck diving the world has to offer, the clearest visibility, and doing it all from an unconventional vehicle such as the heated airboat should really prove to make this an unforgettable experience for divers.”

2009: Austria celebrates Joseph Haydn

A chance to experience the master’s music where it was penned, Austria.

Joseph Haydn was one of the most prominent composers of the classical period, and is called by some the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet". May 31, 2009, will mark the 200th anniversary of his death and all through the year much of Austria will pay tribute to the composer with a rich program of concerts, opera performances and exhibitions.

A native of Lower Austria, Haydn spent over 30 years working at Esterházy Palace in Eisenstadt, Burgenland, as musical director for the Hungarian princely family, and he was also a regular guest at the Esterházy mansion in Sopron (Ödenburg). He sang as a choirboy at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, and passed his final 19 years as a prominent resident of the city.

Burgenland – center of a genius’s life and work

Haydn is as inseparably associated with Eisenstadt – just 50 km away from Vienna and the capital of Austria’s youngest province, Burgenland – as Mozart is with Salzburg. In this charming Baroque town on the southern slopes of the Leitha hills, the authentic backdrop to the composer’s life and work has been preserved to this day in the form of numerous original sites.

During Haydn Year 2009 blockbusting exhibitions will illuminate every facet of the “Haydn phenomenon”. The main exhibition from March 31 to November 11 will give visitors an insight into the life and work of the composer whilst at the same time illustrating the importance of Eisenstadt and the Esterházy princes for his oeuvre1. At four exhibition locations – Esterházy Palace, the Haydn House, the Diocesan Museum and Burgenland’s Provincial Museum – visitors will have a chance to experience Haydn’s life and music in the round.

Burgenland will be paying tribute to Joseph Haydn’s musical legacy with a series of festivals. From the gala opening concert with Nikolaus Harnoncourt on Haydn’s birthday (March 31) to the festival of sacred music entitled “Religious Haydn” (April 9–13), the “TRIOthlon” chamber music festival (April 30 – May 3), the “Haydn Memorial Days” marking the 200th anniversary of the composer’s death (May 29 – June 1), the “Sturm & Drang” symphonic festival (June 18–21), and the traditional International Haydn Festival, billed as “Haydn – London and Paris” in 2009 (September 9–27) – Haydn’s rich musical oeuvre1 will be performed by its finest interpreters from all over the world at the original Eisenstadt locations.

Burgenland will also be celebrating the master outside Eisenstadt. The Kobersdorf Castle theater season will be staging a special highlight. “Der Kopf des Joseph Haydn” (The Head of Joseph Haydn) – a “mystery play with music” will give an introduction to Haydn's dryly humorous personality in an amusing but historically accurate way. And the “J:opera” summer music festival in Jennersdorf has put the enchanting Haydn opera “Il Mondo della Luna” on its 2009 program.

Vienna – from choirboy to revered master

It was in Vienna that Joseph Haydn began his musical career as a choirboy and spent the last 19 years of his life as an acclaimed master of his art. The city of music will be honoring this famous musician with a series of over 1,500 events ranging from operas and concerts to exhibitions.

To start off the year, the Austrian National Library will be showing the autograph manuscript of Haydn’s imperial anthem “Gott erhalte” (till February 1, 2009). Vienna’s Haydn House – the composer’s home for 12 years and today the Haydn Museum – will be reopened on January 29. Two top-class exhibitions – “Joseph Haydn in London” (March 20 – June 20) and “Joseph Haydn. Princes, Sponsors and Patrons” (October 29 – December 19) – will attract visitors to the Musikverein. At the Mozarthaus, the exhibition “Haydn – Hasse – Mozart” will highlight the relations between these three musicians (May 19 – September 20), and there will also be concerts, and the House of Music has a room permanently dedicated to Haydn. The program will be rounded out by Sunday concerts during the summer and the exhibition “Haydn at Work”.

Riccardo Muti and the Vienna Philharmonic will be opening the Sounds of Easter festival on April 4 with Haydn’s oratorio “The Seven Last Words of Christ.” The orchestra Wiener Akademie, conducted by Martin Haselböck, will perform the “Creation” on May 29, 30 and 31 (Haydn’s day of death) at the Austrian Academy of Scienes. The “Sound of Haydn” will fill the Belvedere on May 15 and 27, and original Baroque sounds will ring out during a night of concerts entitled “Haydn at the Clavier” at the Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments. All of Haydn’s masses will be performed at the Church of the Augustine Friars, while all his string quartets will be played at St. Michael’s Church. The Vienna Boys’ Choir will be singing Haydn masses at the Hofburg Chapel, and 25 Haydn evenings are planned at the Baroque basilica of Maria Treu, where Haydn once played the organ.

Lower Austria – where it all began

In Lower Austria, which surrounds Vienna, the “province’s famous son” will naturally be honored in fitting style. The series of events begins with a Haydn festival at the Festival Hall in St. Pölten, during which the focus will be on workshops and concerts for children.

The exhibition “The Haydn Phenomenon – Development of a Genius”, to be staged at the Kulturfabrik Hainburg from June 1 to December 30, will be given over to Joseph Haydn’s childhood and youth, which he spent in Rohrau and Hainburg.

The “Haydn Days” at the palace of the counts Harrach, in the composer’s birthplace Rohrau, have been highly popular for some years now. Feistritz Castle will be dedicating a weekend of music to Haydn. The works of Joseph Haydn will likewise be the focus of the International Baroque Days at Melk Abbey and the “Allegro Vivo” international chamber music festival in Lower Austria’s Waldviertel region.

Sopron – where the prince and Haydn were frequent visitors

From Easter to December, Sopron (Ödenburg) – a small town in a Hungarian enclave surrounded by Burgenland on three sides – will be staging concerts to commemorate its regular guest, Joseph Haydn. On Good Friday (April 10, 2009), Haydn’s “Seven Last Words of Christ” will be performed at St. George’s Church. St. Michael’s Church will host a performance of Haydn’s oratorio “The Creation” on May 31. On June 25, and July 2, 9 and 16, there will be concerts with musicians in the period dress of Haydn’s day at the Esterházy mansion. On August 19 (on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989), the Quarry Theater will witness a performance of Haydn's Symphony No. 88 in G Major and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. And on December 14, the “Harmony Mass” will ring out the musical program of Haydn Year in Sopron.

1. a substantial body of work constituting the lifework of a writer, an artist, or a composer. Merriam Webster Dictionary