Into the Labyrinth: The Making of a Modern-Day Theseus

by Bruce Butler

Project Spinnaker was a joint Canada–US defence project conceived in the waning days of the Cold War. Spinnaker’s secret purpose was to reassert Canada’s Arctic sovereignty by providing the capability to monitor submarine traffic in Canadian Arctic waters. The star of Project Spinnaker was Theseus, a massive Canadian-made autonomous underwater vehicle designed for a single laying fibre-optic cable in ice-covered waters. More than 2,500 years after the mythical Greek hero Theseus ventured into the labyrinth on the island of Crete to slay the Minotaur, the submarine Theseus was launched into an undersea labyrinth with a strikingly similar lay nearly 200 kilometres of fibre-optic cable on the seafloor of Canada’s Arctic, then turn around and follow it back out. With a foreword by Dr. James R. McFarlane, OC, CD, P.Eng., FCAE and endorsements by several marine experts, Into the Labyrinth provides a fascinating glimpse into the subsea industry of the 1980s and ‘90s set against the backdrop of Canada’s stunning yet hostile High Arctic.

539 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 15, 2018

About the author

BRUCE BUTLER is a member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association. He is a semi-retired professional engineer who writes about his passions: engineering, cycling, and science fiction.

He has worked in the high-technology field for thirty-five years in marine navigation, autonomous vehicles (land, underwater), vessel surveillance, telecommunications, mining automation, and remote control of construction equipment.

He is a bona fide nerd/trekkie who also enjoys trail running, cycling, swimming and doing Ironman triathlons. When not writing or exercising he likes to do home renovations.

He lives in Penticton, British Columbia and is currently working on the second book in his HYDRA Chronicles science fiction series.