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Pieces of Canada's first warship coming home from U.S. sea floor
Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Relics from the wreck of a century-old warship hailed as ''the cradle of Canada's naval forces'' will return to this country as part of a landmark agreement with the U.S. government.
The 61-metre cruiser called Canada was launched in 1904 from a British shipyard, custom-designed as a speedy, well-armed man-of-war to patrol our Atlantic fishing grounds and train officers for a Canadian navy that hadn't yet been officially established.
But after serving as a military training vessel, and then in the First World War as a minesweeper and protector of troop convoys, HMCS Canada was sold, renamed Queen of Nassau and used as a luxury liner for cruises between Florida and the Bahamas.
Then she sank in mysterious circumstances off the Florida Keys in 1926. Found by divers 75 years later, the wreck was explored and identified in 2002 by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which declared the ''remarkably intact'' vessel a historic site because of its significance to Canadian history.
At the time, Nova Scotia maritime historian Marven Moore called it ''the flagship of the embryonic Canadian Navy'' that was ''symbolic of the evolution of Canada from a dominion within the British Empire to a sovereign nation.''
Now, the U.S. agency has agreed to lend Canada a small collection of artifacts recovered from the wreck the first time the NOAA has allowed material from one of its underwater heritage sites to be exhibited in a foreign country.
Among the objects to be put on display at the Vancouver Maritime Museum and possibly in a cross-Canada exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Canadian navy in 2010 is the ship's torpedo-like speedometer, which museum director James Delgado calls an ''iconic'' symbol of Canada's nation-building race to become a naval power.
The ''taffrail log'' was towed behind the ship to measure how fast it was moving through the water. The British manufacture of the device recovered from the shipwreck, says Delgado, confirms it was the original one used when the Canada served as a naval training vessel.
Other artifacts to be displayed in Canada include part of a ship's lantern, British-made dinnerware and the handle from a hatch.
''These artifacts can be a doorway to telling a much bigger story,'' Delgado told CanWest News Service on Monday.
''This was the first modern warship purchased by Canada,'' he noted, adding that ''the experience those officers gained on the decks, in the engine room, at the guns'' of the Canada became the ''founding core'' of the Royal Canadian Navy.
''Canada's decks were, in a sense, the cradle of Canada's naval forces,'' Delgado has written of a ship ''that should be famous in Canada, but which time has ensured the nation has forgotten.''
The question of whether Canada should create its own navy was an incendiary issue in the years leading to the First World War. With Conservatives pushing for Canada to the contribute to the buildup of Britain's naval forces, and French Canada balking at deeper involvement in imperial politics, the Liberals under prime minister Wilfrid Laurier eventually opted to create a small Canadian naval force that could, in case of war, be placed under British command.
The compromise, which pleased few and eventually contributed to Laurier's defeat in the 1911 election, was embodied in the use of the Canada formally a fishing patrol boat to build skills and knowledge among the future leaders of the country's own navy before and after passage of the Naval Service Act.
Some historians trace the roots of the Royal Canadian Navy later part of the unified Canadian Armed Forces to a military training expedition aboard the Canada to the West Indies in 1905.
The ship's post-war life as a luxury liner ended, amid financial turmoil, just after she was sold in 1926 to a Mexican company. En route to her new port in the dead of night, the Queen of Nassau reportedly began taking on water and sinking but her demise was slow enough for the captain to steer her to the deepest channel in the area and to get all crew safely aboard lifeboats.
Delgado said the sinking ''did cause some tongues to wag'' about possible malfeasance.
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/n...0f8d3-d4eb-4545-8d30-e25dae75bed9&k=32717&p=1
Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Relics from the wreck of a century-old warship hailed as ''the cradle of Canada's naval forces'' will return to this country as part of a landmark agreement with the U.S. government.
The 61-metre cruiser called Canada was launched in 1904 from a British shipyard, custom-designed as a speedy, well-armed man-of-war to patrol our Atlantic fishing grounds and train officers for a Canadian navy that hadn't yet been officially established.
But after serving as a military training vessel, and then in the First World War as a minesweeper and protector of troop convoys, HMCS Canada was sold, renamed Queen of Nassau and used as a luxury liner for cruises between Florida and the Bahamas.
Then she sank in mysterious circumstances off the Florida Keys in 1926. Found by divers 75 years later, the wreck was explored and identified in 2002 by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which declared the ''remarkably intact'' vessel a historic site because of its significance to Canadian history.
At the time, Nova Scotia maritime historian Marven Moore called it ''the flagship of the embryonic Canadian Navy'' that was ''symbolic of the evolution of Canada from a dominion within the British Empire to a sovereign nation.''
Now, the U.S. agency has agreed to lend Canada a small collection of artifacts recovered from the wreck the first time the NOAA has allowed material from one of its underwater heritage sites to be exhibited in a foreign country.
Among the objects to be put on display at the Vancouver Maritime Museum and possibly in a cross-Canada exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Canadian navy in 2010 is the ship's torpedo-like speedometer, which museum director James Delgado calls an ''iconic'' symbol of Canada's nation-building race to become a naval power.
The ''taffrail log'' was towed behind the ship to measure how fast it was moving through the water. The British manufacture of the device recovered from the shipwreck, says Delgado, confirms it was the original one used when the Canada served as a naval training vessel.
Other artifacts to be displayed in Canada include part of a ship's lantern, British-made dinnerware and the handle from a hatch.
''These artifacts can be a doorway to telling a much bigger story,'' Delgado told CanWest News Service on Monday.
''This was the first modern warship purchased by Canada,'' he noted, adding that ''the experience those officers gained on the decks, in the engine room, at the guns'' of the Canada became the ''founding core'' of the Royal Canadian Navy.
''Canada's decks were, in a sense, the cradle of Canada's naval forces,'' Delgado has written of a ship ''that should be famous in Canada, but which time has ensured the nation has forgotten.''
The question of whether Canada should create its own navy was an incendiary issue in the years leading to the First World War. With Conservatives pushing for Canada to the contribute to the buildup of Britain's naval forces, and French Canada balking at deeper involvement in imperial politics, the Liberals under prime minister Wilfrid Laurier eventually opted to create a small Canadian naval force that could, in case of war, be placed under British command.
The compromise, which pleased few and eventually contributed to Laurier's defeat in the 1911 election, was embodied in the use of the Canada formally a fishing patrol boat to build skills and knowledge among the future leaders of the country's own navy before and after passage of the Naval Service Act.
Some historians trace the roots of the Royal Canadian Navy later part of the unified Canadian Armed Forces to a military training expedition aboard the Canada to the West Indies in 1905.
The ship's post-war life as a luxury liner ended, amid financial turmoil, just after she was sold in 1926 to a Mexican company. En route to her new port in the dead of night, the Queen of Nassau reportedly began taking on water and sinking but her demise was slow enough for the captain to steer her to the deepest channel in the area and to get all crew safely aboard lifeboats.
Delgado said the sinking ''did cause some tongues to wag'' about possible malfeasance.
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/n...0f8d3-d4eb-4545-8d30-e25dae75bed9&k=32717&p=1
