One of Canada’s newest naval ships is returning to the lower Great Lakes for the rest of October and into November.
The HMCS Harry DeWolf, which also made the trip last autumn, is currently anchored in Toronto with upcoming stops scheduled for Hamilton and Windsor.
It has public tours scheduled for all three locations.
“We’re quite pleased to be here. We are engaged in what we refer to as the Great Lakes deployment so it’s an opportunity for us to engage with Canadians in this region but also all the way up the St. Lawrence Seaway as well,” said Jon Nicholson, commander of the Harry DeWolf, one of Canada’s newest naval ships, designed especially to assert sovereignty in Canada’s north, and has icebreaking capabilities.
“We’re a very capable icebreaker and I can attest to that because this ship and I were in the centre of the arctic, right in the middle of the Northwest Passage in late July and we even got called away on a search and rescue while we were up there and saved eight lives while we went through ice fields to find the stricken vessel we were there to save,” he said, in an Oct. 10 phone call.
In 2021, soon after the ship was commissioned, it became the first Royal Canadian Navy ship to complete the Northwest Passage since 1954 and then went on to circumnavigate “the entire continent.”
“It was a very exciting achievement for our navy and we still have a few sailors in Harry DeWolf that were a part of that team during that (deployment),” said Nicholson, who adds that the ship was commanded at the time by Corey Gleason, since retired.
The ship’s current deployment will involve another very interesting transit.
“We’re going to be leaving Hamilton on Oct. 21 and I believe the following day we’re going to make our transit through that great canal (Welland Canal). That’s about a 12-hour job,” said Nicholson who grew up in Summerside, Prince Edward Island.
“It’s a lot of people in my crew and I that are focused every second on what our ship is doing and making sure we’re safe as we’re progressing through the lock system to move over to Lake Erie.”
Once in Lake Erie, he said “we’ll continue to do some patrolling, we’ll do some training on board and then we get quite a lengthy visit (in) Windsor.”
The trip through the Welland Canal should catch the attention of onlookers.
“We’re looking forward to that. It’s the first time that this class of ship has done that transit,” he said.
“Our frigates … have done trips through that canal and have also progressed as far as into Lake Huron. So they’ve done that in the past. We just simply don’t have the time to press on into Lake Huron for this trip.”
While the frigates are a bit longer, he said the Harry DeWolf is wider and much heavier, something it needs to be as an icebreaker.
Canadian naval ship the HMCS Harry DeWolf participating in Operation Nanook 2024.
Next up for the Canadian naval vessel?
“When we’re completed with this particular mission we’re going to head back home to Halifax and then get ready for our next deployment where we’re going to go do a counter-narcotics mission in the Caribbean,” he said.
It’s a very different location and mission from their summer arctic sojourn but one he said crew and ship are ready for.
“We’re a very agile and capable ship. We can easily adapt to very, very many mission sets,” he said.
The ship left Halifax Oct. 1 for its lower Great Lakes deployment, he said, and started its transit Oct. 4 from Montreal through the St. Lawrence, arriving in Kingston on Oct. 7 for two nights.
The “overnight transit” to Toronto was, admittedly, not quite as fast as Highway 401 would take — at least on a good day.
“All told, we could have gone faster but we went at a medium pace, so like 10 knots, so that took roughly 12 hours to transit from Kingston to Toronto.”
The ship, as part of its public outreach, is involved with the Royal Canadian Navy’s marine careers expos which are happening at all the lower Great Lakes stops, including in:
The free career expos hope to entice people into the marine trades, including the Royal Canadian Navy.
“We’re going to try to engage with young Canadians and students at trade colleges, trade schools and universities that may be interested in a career in the marine domain,” he said.
The stops all also include public tours of the navy vessel and are available as follows:
- Toronto at Water’s Edge Promenade: Saturday, Oct. 12, 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
- Hamilton at HMCS Star/Copps Pier: Oct. 19 and 20, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Windsor, at HMCS Hunter: Nov. 1, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Nov. 2, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
An interesting aspect of the Hamilton stopover, he said, is “that we’re going to be docking right next to the HMCS Haida which is our navy’s flagship.”
“It’s a ceremonial duty that this ship holds because it’s a great ship of honour.,” he said.
It was known as the most “fightingest” ship during the Second World War and its namesake — Admiral Harry DeWolf — was the captain of the Haida at the time, he explained.
The Royal Canadian Navy has more information on the HMCS Harry DeWolf here, including an online tour of the ship here.
