John Driftmier (November 24, 1982 – February 24, 2013) was a Canadian documentary director. His works included Dangerous Flights, Licence to Drill, and Ice Pilots NWT.
Driftmier was born in 1982 in Calgary, Alberta to parents David Driftmier and Sophia Lang.[1] He graduated from Simon Fraser University in 2007. While studying film at SFU, Driftmier produced and directed the film The Story of a Lifetime, both a tribute to and using footage shot by his grandfather, Frederick, who as a teacher in 1941 had shot amateur films in Sudan.[1]
Driftmier married Carolyn Allen in 2010. They lived in Ottawa, Ontario.[1][2]
Driftmier worked in more than 30 countries. He shot a company of northern Canadian pilots in the television series Ice Pilots NWT. In Highway Thru Hell, he documented the stories of a towing company involved in salvage operations in the British Columbia interior in extreme weather conditions. He co-created Pyros, a TV documentary series looking at people who create firework displays.[1]
In 2013, while in Africa to film an episode of Dangerous Flights, documenting the experiences around the world of pilots delivering used commuter airplanes, Driftmier was killed at age 30 in a plane crash in Mount Kenya Forest.[1]
The documentary series Cold Water Cowboys, which Driftmier co-conceived with Tyson Hepburn, debuted in February 2014.[3]