The Royal Canadian Navy is in Owen Sound this weekend with its patrol ship the HMCS Margaret Brooke.
It’s part of a Great Lakes recruiting tour. This weekend there will be information booths along the east side of the Owen Sound Harbour near the Metro grocery store which will have recruitment experts on hand from the Army, Air Force and the Navy, with information on all three elements of the Canadian Armed Forces.
There is a naval ship simulator where people can try their hand at identifying someone who needs rescuing in virtual waters. The booths have booklets available for those who are interested in exploring a role in the forces whether its part time with the reserves or full time with the regular force. The Navy will be also conducting tours that have already been fully booked.
The HMCS Margaret Brooke ship is a Harry DeWolf Class ship, which the government says on its website is the Navy’s, “response to increased competition and traffic in Canada’s exclusive economic zone along the Northwest Passage, and enhances our maritime surveillance capabilities in the region.”
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 Navy has a number of positions it’s recruiting for, and in recent years has started offering its Naval Experience Program which is a one-year program either on the east or west coast of the country. It involves a nine-week basic military training program and four weeks of naval training followed by shadowing various jobs.
The government’s website says the Royal Canadian Navy has about 8,400 regular force members, 4,100 reservists, and 3,800 civilian staff.
Sailor First Class Gabe Buttigieg works as a Naval Communicator, which he explains as “the voice and the ears of the ship” dealing with communications with other ships, using radios, visual signalling, Morse code and more recently information technology (IT).
Buttigieg says, “There are a couple of things about the Navy that I think make it the best,” says Buttigieg explaining, “The biggest thing is travel” He says, “I’ve been in for four years, I’ve been down to Antarctica, South America, I’ve been over to Europe, I’ve been up to the Arctic an I’ve seen some really, cool sights, we’ve got penguins and northern lights and some really cool ports and locations that I would never go otherwise. Reykjavik, Iceland was gorgeous. It was such an amazing place and the people there were brilliant and I would have never met them If I had not done that.”
He says the second thing that drew him to the Navy is that is has its own ‘moxy,’ explaining, “It’s got its own swagger. We have all the traditions and things that are passed down over generations that the Army and the Air Force, they might have their own things, but the Navy– it’s such an old trade to be a sailor and it comes with so many really fun traditions.”
Buttigieg says the Great Lakes tour they are doing is a way to bring the Navy to communities that are more ‘inland’ compared to Canada’s coasts.
The closest Naval reserve units to Owen Sound are HMCS Prevost in London, HMCS Star in Hamilton, and HMCS York in Toronto. The Navy is looking to recruit about 1,600 people to address a shortage of personnel.
Owen Sound has a local infantry reserve regiment, the Grey and Simcoe Foresters, which is an Arctic Response Company Group. They are also at the harbour this weekend.
