Hundreds of people took the opportunity to tour a Royal Canadian Navy patrol ship in Owen Sound during its visit to the area.
The HMCS Margaret Brooke was anchored just off Owen Sound’s harbour, offering tours from Friday to Monday as part of a Navy awareness and recruiting tour. It also made a visit at Neyaashiinigmiing on its way into town on Thursday.
The ship’s visit is part of a Great Lakes Tour, and locally saw about 310 people hop into a rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB) to be ferried out to the ship by naval reservists supporting the tour, where they were met by the crew of the Margaret Brooke. Organizers say it was a very good turnout considering the ship was at anchor in the out in the water. The Owen Sound Fire Department also helped ferry people out to the ship in their boat.
A Great Lakes Tour arm patch on a sailor’s uniform
There were also hundreds visiting information booths at the harbour wall this past weekend and a Navy experience trailer which had a simulator that allowed people to attempt to virtually rescue someone in the water.
Tours on the weekend were fully booked ahead of time, but if there were people who didn’t show up for their booked spot, organizers said it was given to people on hand who wanted to go. People came from all around Grey Bruce, but some also drove hours from places like Barrie, and Base Borden.
The crew of the Margaret Brooke also provided a live rescue demonstration for those on a longer tour Monday where a dummy was thrown overboard, the ship did a quick turnaround while flares were thrown into the water to mark the dummy’s general whereabouts and then sailors in a rescue boat were lowered out of the side of the ship to locate and rescue the dummy from the water within minutes.
A rescue boat is lowered into the water to save a dummy thrown overboard in a demonstration.
Depending on the length of their tour, visitors were able to see a variety of things including firefighting demonstrations with a hose, the anchor room, the bridge (where the ship is driven), a sleeping cabin, operations and machinery rooms, the cafeteria, and the gym among many other rooms and areas on the ship including where vehicles would be stored if needed. The ship can hold two pickup trucks in that area, or it can hold things like ATVs or snowmobiles.
Sailor First Class Sciarretta, who is a Naval Combat Information Operator on board the Margaret Brooke says, “I’ve been giving tours to cadets, military members and civilians and locals from the area,” adding, “Overall, I think the trip has been very successful, a lot of people have been able to come out from Navy League all the way up to adults who always wished they could see what a portion of the Navy is.
Sciaretta says, “It’s really nice to see that there are a lot of Canadians in these parts of Canada that aren’t aware of the Navy that are interested in the Navy and are showing their support and are all happy to come out and ask questions.”
He adds, “We had our Navy League and Sea Cadets for a couple of areas surrounding all come out. A lot of them were very excited to see the actual Navy –what the large scale of the thing they kind of do at home looks like. A lot of the kids were really excited trying to compare and contrast what they do compared to what we do here in terms of actual sailing, line handling and a lot of them were really surprised to see a lot of the traditions that they at their sea cadet unit– we do here in our military too. I think a lot of them felt more validated with the things they do in cadets because they see it become a lot of our regular life here as sailors in the Royal Canadian Navy.”
The HMCS Margaret Brooke ship is a Harry DeWolf Class Arctic and offshore patrol vessel. It’s named after named after Margaret Brooke, a Royal Canadian Navy Nursing Sister who showed heroism and gallantry after the torpedoing and sinking of the ferry the SS Caribou in the Cabot Strait off Newfoundland in on October 1942 during WWII.
It can be used for search and rescue, surveillance, as an armed presence, to provide humanitarian aid or disaster relief.
It’s currently based out of Halifax and regularly goes to the Arctic, as well as occasional deployments to the Caribbean and in the unique case of the HMCS Margaret Brooke, has even been to Antarctica.
The ship heads to Windsor next then Toronto, Kingston, Montreal, to its namesake port in Labrador, and then back to its home port of Halifax. In early 2026 it’s due to deploy to the Caribbean.
You can follow it on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/HMCS.NCSM.MargaretBrooke
