BRANDON, MB – August 16, 2025 – The City of Brandon, Manitoba, has taken a bold step to preserve a piece of its naval heritage by formally inquiring about acquiring the Kingston-class coastal defence vessel HMCS Brandon (MM 710) following its scheduled decommissioning later this year. The Royal Canadian Navy vessel, named in honour of the city, has served Canada since 1999, and local leaders see its potential as a unique tourist attraction and a symbol of civic pride.
HMCS Brandon, the second vessel to bear the city’s name, was commissioned on June 5, 1999, at CFB Esquimalt, British Columbia, where it has been stationed with Maritime Forces Pacific (MARPAC). Built by Halifax Shipyards Ltd., the 970-tonne Kingston-class vessel has served in various roles, including coastal patrol, minesweeping, and international operations such as Operation Caribbe, where it played a critical role in intercepting illicit drugs in the Pacific. The ship’s badge, featuring a seahorse and a ducal coronet, reflects the city’s historical connection to Douglas, Duke of Brandon, a key figure in the Hudson’s Bay Company and ancestor of Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, who established the Red River settlement in 1811.
The first HMCS Brandon (K149), a Flower-class corvette, served during the Second World War, earning battle honours in the Atlantic and Gulf of St. Lawrence. Decommissioned in 1945 and scrapped in Hamilton, Ontario, its legacy lives on in the current vessel, which carries the same name and pride.
A Vision for HMCS Brandon’s Future
In July 2025, the Royal Canadian Navy announced that HMCS Brandon, along with seven other Kingston-class vessels, would be paid off before the end of the year as part of a fleet modernization plan. This decision sparked immediate interest in Brandon, where civic leaders and residents saw an opportunity to bring the ship home. On August 14, 2025, Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett sent a formal inquiry to the Royal Canadian Navy, expressing the city’s interest in acquiring the vessel for display as a tourist attraction and educational exhibit.
Deveryn Ross, a local advocate praised for his foresight, has been a vocal supporter of the initiative. In a letter to *The Brandon Sun*, Ross highlighted the monumental but worthwhile task of transforming HMCS Brandon into a centerpiece for tourism, emphasizing its potential to draw visitors and educate future generations about the city’s naval connections.
Challenges and Opportunities
Acquiring a naval vessel is no small feat. The process involves navigating logistical, financial, and regulatory hurdles. HMCS Brandon, measuring 55.3 meters in length and 11.3 meters in beam, would require significant planning to transport from Esquimalt, British Columbia, to landlocked Brandon, Manitoba. Options such as dismantling and reassembling the ship or converting it into a stationary exhibit at a local site, such as the Assiniboine River waterfront, are under consideration. Additionally, the costs of transportation, maintenance, and site preparation could be substantial, requiring partnerships with government bodies, private donors, and community organizations.
Despite these challenges, the potential benefits are significant. The first HMCS Brandon’s bell, originally intended for the RCA Museum in Shilo, Manitoba, underscores the region’s commitment to preserving naval artifacts. A decommissioned HMCS Brandon could serve as a permanent museum piece, offering interactive exhibits on Canada’s naval history, the Kingston-class vessels’ contributions, and Brandon’s role in national defense. The ship could also complement existing attractions, such as the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum, boosting tourism in the region.
The proposal has garnered enthusiasm from residents and local leaders. The City of Brandon recently raised the Royal Canadian Navy ensign to honour HMCS Brandon’s 25 years of service, signaling strong community support for the initiative. Rear-Admiral John Newton (ret.), a former commander, praised the Kingston-class vessels for their versatility in missions ranging from counter-drug operations to maritime security training, noting their role in fostering capable sailors and national pride. Such sentiments resonate in Brandon, where the ship is seen as a tangible link to the city’s identity.
Mayor Fawcett’s inquiry marks the first step in a complex process. The Royal Canadian Navy will need to assess the feasibility of transferring the vessel, considering factors such as its condition post-decommissioning and federal regulations governing the disposal of military assets. If approved, the city would likely collaborate with organizations like the Naval Museum of Manitoba, which has experience preserving the province’s naval heritage, including artifacts from the first HMCS Brandon.
A great ship manned over the years by very professional and dedicated crew. I had the honour of commanding her back in 2009-10. I really hope the city is successful in this bid to acquire and preserve her.”She Acquires Strenght Through Progress”
1) The ship itself: size and draft make almost every move option unrealistic
HMCS Brandon is ~55.3 m long, 11.3 m wide, and draws ~3.4 m (≈11 ft). Displacement is ~970 t.
Government of Canada
Even if it were fully operational (you note it hasn’t been for years), those dimensions alone preclude any normal inland water route to Brandon.
2) No practical waterway to Brandon, MB
Brandon sits on the Assiniboine River. While parts of the Assiniboine/Red system are legally “navigable waters,” that simply triggers federal oversight—it does not mean they are deep or engineered for seagoing ships.
The Red River navigation season is supported by a single lock/dam at St. Andrews near Winnipeg, historically maintaining about 9 ft of depth—less than HMCS Brandon’s ~11 ft draft. Even if you could reach Winnipeg (you can’t, see below), the depth is insufficient.
There’s also no continuous, engineered navigation corridor from the ocean to the Assiniboine: the Nelson River between Lake Winnipeg and Hudson Bay is punctuated by multiple Manitoba Hydro generating stations (e.g., Kettle, Long Spruce, Limestone) with no navigation locks—i.e., hard stops for vessels.
Bottom line: you cannot tow/float a 55 m, 3.4 m-draft warship to Brandon via rivers/lakes.
3) Air, rail, or road? Each fails on basic physics or regulation
Airlift: The world’s largest cargo plane, the An-225 which was destroyed in the Ukraine, tops out at ~250 t payload and a cargo hold 6.4 m wide × 4.4 m high × ~43 m long. HMCS Brandon is 11.3 m wide and 55.3 m long—well beyond the bay dimensions even if you stripped it to lightship weight.
Rail: Standard North American rail clearances handle loads a few metres wide; 11.3 m beam would demand cutting the hull into multiple narrower sections and fabricating custom saddles. (CF: the need for oversize clearances; there is no practical rail route for an intact 11 m-wide hull.)
Highway: Manitoba requires over-width permits above 2.6 m, with common annual limits around 3.7 m in Brandon. An 11.3 m-wide hull would require extreme single-move permits, police escorts, utilities/overpass work, and—realistically—cutting the ship into 3–4 sections, then re-welding and fairing in situ.
Every land option implies multi-section disassembly, heavy-haul module transport, structural re-assembly, and full coatings/insulation/electrical re-integration—a multi-million-dollar engineering project before you’ve even built a place to put it. To reassemble and make into a viable museum, would likely cost in the 10’s of millions of dollars.
4) What similar Canadian “ship-to-shore” projects actually cost
HMCS Ojibwa (Oberon-class submarine): The small municipality of Bayham guaranteed a $6 M project to land and display the boat at Port Burwell; with interest and legal costs the community ultimately carried ~$8 M of debt tied to the project. That’s a cautionary tale for small towns taking on big naval artifacts.
HMCS Onondaga (Rimouski): Even with direct seaside access, getting the sub ashore required constructing a marine railway and multiple complex attempts—illustrating how technically fussy (and risky) heavy naval artifacts are to position on land.
HMCS Brandon is bigger than these boats in length/beam footprint and would need road/rail logistics the subs didn’t. Expect costs to scale accordingly.
5) Ongoing costs: preserving a steel warship inland is not cheap
Museum ships routinely cost hundreds of thousands to millions per year to operate/maintain. As one concrete datapoint, the Battleship USS Iowa (a much larger ship, granted) reported US$6.0 M in annual expenses in 2022—illustrative of the order of magnitude required to safely staff, insure, maintain, and program a ship-museum. Smaller ships are cheaper, but the fixed costs (staffing, utilities, corrosion control, insurance, programming) remain substantial.
Inland placement adds winterization, snow/ice safety, humidity control, cathodic protection for a dry-berth cradle, and building-code compliance for public egress—costs that persist every year. (Parks Canada’s occasional capital infusions for HMCS Haida also show that significant public money is needed even for well-situated, professionally managed sites.)
6) Can Brandon’s market sustain it?
City population (2021): ~51,313.
By comparison, HMCS Haida sits in the Hamilton metro area and still only draws ~12,000–16,000 visitors/year under Parks Canada stewardship. In a smaller, less tourist-dense city, you’d need very aggressive external funding to offset lower gate and sponsorship revenue.
7) Ownership & disposal hurdles
DND assets aren’t simply “gifted”: surplus military materiel must pass through the federal disposal framework (GCSurplus/GCTransfer). Donations as static monuments are possible, but only after policy checks and where value vs. disposal costs align—none of which solves the logistics bill.
Bottom line
There is no viable water route; air/rail/road require cutting the ship and an extreme heavy-haul project.
Precedent Canadian projects show multi-million-dollar capital costs even in favourable, coastal settings.
Annual sustainment for a ship-museum is material, often well into six or seven figures; Brandon’s population base and tourism profile make that hard to cover without ongoing higher-level government funding.
If the goal is to honour the namesake connection, a far more achievable alternative is a high-quality shore-based exhibit (artefacts, ship’s bell, nameplate, interactive displays) obtained through DND’s donation processes—without burdening the municipality with the relocation, fabrication, and lifetime upkeep of a 55-metre steel ship.
There is so many obstacles preventing this from happening including prohibited costs, logistics and upkeep of the ship as a museum that its just not practical.