Canada's Naval History

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Birth Of the Navy

First World War

Between the Wars

Second World War

Early Cold War

Later Cold War
- - From RCN to Maritime Command
  - A Changing Fleet

Navy Today
- - The Gulf War
  - Continuing Commitments

The Navy Today
Continuing Commitments

Beginning in the 1990s, long-standing efforts to renew the ships and equipment of Canada's navy began to produce results, with new vessels entering service. At the same time, the navy continued to fulfill national commitments to alliance operations and, following terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, to "the war on terror".

HMCS Oriole

The sail training ship HMCS Oriole, the longest-serving ship in Canada's navy, helps train junior naval personnel and other members of the Canadian Forces.

During and after the Second World War, Oriole, built in 1921, helped train cadets. After being chartered to the Royal Canadian Navy as a training ship, it was commissioned as HMCS Oriole in 1952 and subsequently moved from Halifax to Esquimalt to continue its training activities. The ship's namesake bird decorates its tri-colour spinnaker (left), a sail some 650 square metres in size.

Naval Museum of Alberta