Meet BJ Kirschhoffer, Beluga Cam Installer

Matt Villano takes us under deck with the cam installers of the Beluga Boat Cam. It sometimes requires a bit of Macgyver-ing and plenty of creativity…

It’s one thing to engineer an underwater camera rig with access to a virtually limitless catalog of parts. But as BJ Kirschhoffer learned earlier this summer, it is entirely something different to piece together a rig from scrap metal. “Any time you’re working in the north, you have limited resources,” he notes. “We ended up turning to a local guy who found old snowmobile parts and scrap steel and cut them and welded them over two days to make a bracket.” Kirschhoffer, 31, known as Polar Bears International’s extreme problem solver, usually works with fixed cameras. He says another challenge with installing mobile cameras on the Zodiac revolved around managing power. The solution: Lightweight, high-capacity AGM batteries that recharge with ease. “On the tundra buggies, we carry 1,000 pounds of batteries,” says Kirschhoffer. “On the boats we’ve opted for energy sources that take a completely different approach.”