HMCS KAPUSKASING

The Algerine Coastal Escort and Minesweeper, HMCS KAPUSKASING, was built by the Port Arthur Shipbuilding Co., Port Arthur, ()now Thunder Bay, Ontario), and was commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy on 17 August, 1944.  After arrival in Halifax, some further modifications were made to the ship to prepare her for duty in the stormy weather of wintertime in the North Atlantic.  In September, she sailed for Bermuda with other ships to prepare herself further for her duties with working-up exercises.  While in these islands, she had the misfortune of colliding with the frigate, HMCS HALLOWELL.  The latter suffered only slight damage, but KAPUSKASING sustained a penetration of her hull up to three feet at the upper deck.  She had to proceed at once to the dockyard for repairs.

She returned to Halifax in November and, early in the following month, opened what was to become a schedule of convoy-escorting duties which lasted until the end of the war.  She was appointed Senior Officer of W-1 Group, a number of local escort ships, chiefly Algerines and corvettes, whose duty it was to lend support both to small coastal convoys and to the larger mid-ocean convoys during the coastal stages of their passages.  In the latter case, she and her group relieved the mid-ocean escorts off Newfoundland or, if they were outgoing convoys, they turned over to them ships they had escorted from New York, Halifax and Sydney.

Arriving late on the scene, KAPUSKASING’s contribution to the war effort was necessarily modest, but it was not insignificant.  She saw no action, but she invariably sailed in bad weather and was responsible for the safety of many merchant ships.  She met one convoy, ON-289, out of Britain in March 1945, which consisted of 76 ships.  Her first voyage took her to St. John’s, Newfoundland, her second to New York.  With Halifax, these were the ports in which her ship’s company found relaxation once they were relieved of the responsibilities of shepherding and watching over the safety of the merchant ships with their valuable cargoes.

The Navy paid off HMCS KAPUSKASING on 27 March 1946.  She was still a comparatively new ship, however, with a potentiality of many useful years ahead of her.  She had been built as a minesweeper and it was as such that the Navy placed her in reserve to be ready for an emergency.

But there were other eyes on her.  The Department of Mines and Resources requested a loan of two Algerines to be fitted out as survey ships for their hydrographic service.  There were no other ships suitable for such work to be obtained from either the Royal Navy or the United States Navy, and it was important to the Department to have two such ships converted for an Atlantic Coast survey in the Spring of 1949.  At first the Naval Board demurred, arguing that in an emergency it would take too long to reconvert the ships to minesweepers.  But when it was established that the reconversion would require two months only as opposed to the anticipated twelve, their objection lost its point and they gave their consent.

The Algerines picked for the loan were KAPUSKASING and FORT FRANCES.  They were taken out of reserve and sailed to private shipyards for conversion, the former to the Halifax Shipyards Limited and the latter to the Saint John, N.B., Drydock Limited.  The conversion, among other changes, meant the fitting of echo-sounders and surveying launches.  Converted in this manner and operating as Canadian Government ships, they worked in areas along the Atlantic coast and in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

At the time of writing KAPUSKASING remains with the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources.  She is growing old and is, perhaps, no match for the bright new ships who have joined her, but her usefulness appears to continue unimpaired.  There have been no serious proposals to dispose of her.

Directorate of History
Canadian Forces Headquarters

16 February 1971