People & Culture
Photos: Life on board HMCS Yellowknife
Canada’s mission as part of Operation Caribbe? Choke off the flow of cocaine and other drugs across the eastern Pacific.
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- 4 minutes
Exploration
HMCS Canada: The forgotten ship that built a navy with Joseph Frey
Episode 131
Naval historian Joseph Frey reveals how a modern expedition helped rewrite the story of one of Canada’s most significant warships
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What does a ship that sank a century ago off the Florida Keys have to do with the birth of the Royal Canadian Navy?
Quite a lot, as it turns out.
Before there was a Royal Canadian Navy, there was the HMCS Canada, a steel-hulled vessel that trained Canada’s first naval officers, escorted First World War convoys, survived the Halifax Explosion, and helped lay the foundations of a young nation’s naval service. Yet despite its remarkable legacy, most Canadians have never heard of it.
In this episode of Explore, host David McGuffin sits down with naval historian, underwater archaeologist and former Royal Canadian Navy officer Joseph Frey to tell the extraordinary story of Canada’s forgotten first warship: the HMSC Canada.
From its launch in 1904 to its wartime service and eventual sinking off the Florida Keys in 1926, Frey traces the unlikely journey of a vessel that helped shape Canadian history.
The conversation also follows a modern RCGS Flagged expedition, led by Frey, to the wreck nearly a century after the ship’s loss. Using advanced diving techniques and 3D photogrammetry, Frey and his team documented the wreck, answered long-standing questions about how it sank, and helped restore HMCS Canada‘s place in Canada’s historical memory.
Along the way, Frey reflects on his role in the discovery of HMS Erebus, the enduring appeal of underwater exploration, and why forgotten stories like HMCS Canada still matter today.
Whether you’re listening in a car, a canoe, a sailboat, a dock, or somewhere along Canada’s coastline, this is a story of exploration, naval history, and the remarkable rediscovery of a ship that helped build a nation.
Joseph Frey is Vice-President of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, a Fellow of The Explorers Club, a naval historian, an underwater archaeologist, and a retired Royal Canadian Navy officer. He was a member of the 2014 Victoria Strait Expedition that discovered HMS Erebus, one of Sir John Franklin’s lost ships, and has spent decades researching and documenting Canada’s maritime history both above and below the waterline.
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